


Disillusions of Grandeur

by Xianyu (Xian2)



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Breeding, F/M, Knotting, M/F, Oral Sex, Pokemon x Pokemon, Transformation, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xian2/pseuds/Xianyu
Summary: A young man finds himself on the receiving end of a freak accident at a pokemon laboratory that results in him being turned into a pokemon, and he soon finds himself tangled up with the very wild female zoroark he is rescued by!Written as a commission for Cario
Relationships: Human/Zoroark, Zoroark/Zoroark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Disillusions of Grandeur

**Author's Note:**

> No, the word count is not lying. It is damn near 40,000 words long. I'm experimenting with a new method of posting (Posting on here requires messing with the HTML and you might notice my other series has very... inconsistent styling!) 
> 
> I tend to hate the tendency of websites acquiescing to the tender sensibilities of certain browsers by creating a tenement for each paragraph with tendentiously tenuous spacing! It makes me very tense!
> 
> They put the paragraphs too goddamn far apart is what I'm saying! And with 39,000 words I don't want your goddamn thumbs falling off scrolling more often than you have to. But in my quest to remove all of those unnecessary spaces, I might have utterly borked the display up for certain browsers, phones, tablets, etc. So please, if the story is unreadable, send me a message or leave a comment and I'll try to fix it!

John inhaled suddenly as consciousness rushed back to his body. Everything hurt, from his head to his toes. He could feel; every hair on his body, from his arms, to his legs, and they all felt like they were _on fire_.  
  
There was a hole in the ceiling, letting light stream in, and the unusually bright sunlight lanced his eyes and intensified his headache. He could smell burnt electronics and seared insulation, the copper of twisted wiring and burnt plastic was so strong he could _taste it_ and there was a loud rushing in his ears like all of his blood was circulating right in his cranium.  
  
John closed his eyes and winced. Everything felt wrong. Every limb ached. Every patch of his body that could hurt, did.  
  
It took several long seconds for John to remember he had been blown up.  
  
John’s mind meandered back to the previous night, at the bar. The scientist, a man named Rian, had been talking his ear off in a quite drunk fashion about shiny zoroark. ‘The rarest of all pokemon in the world’. An illusion master that could make itself seem like anyone, or anything else. Even if you saw a zoroark’s true form, you might not be seeing its _true_ true form, but rather a careful projection of a shiny zoroark trying to appear plain.  
  
To date, _no one_ , anywhere in the entire world, had even captured a shiny zoroark on film.  
  
And now, thanks to a collaboration with a scientist named ‘Bill’, Rian had a way to finally get one!  
  
Or so he had drunkenly claimed.  
  
After being talked at for nearly an hour, John was ready to just go home and go to bed, but Rian had offered him quite the princely sum to transport and set up the heavy machinery he needed to have installed at his lab on the edge of the forest.  
  
John had needed a little bit of convincing, but eventually accepted, the promise of _ten thousand_ pokedollars being just a bit more than his impatience at long-winded eccentric scientists.  
  
And so John had spent the better part of the morning removing heavy machinery from padded crates and setting them up in the marked spaces carefully drawn on the floor. There were five in total. Five bulky, awkward-to-move machines with dim LEDs on the front and wires spewing out the back like a tangela orgy.  
  
John had set them all up, lined them up perfectly, connected them as shown in diagrams on a whiteboard next to complicated mathematical formulae.  
  
And then the machines had made a sound like a jet-fighter kicking into overdrive and exploded in showers of golden sparks and smoke and a wave of force so powerful that the last thing John remembered was being airborne.  
  


* * *

  
  
Wincing, John rolled onto his side. His head seemed to snag on something and he started to hyperventilate. Was his scalp hanging loose? Without opening his ears, he lifted his hand to the back of his head, feeling around. The first thing that struck him was that he couldn’t feel anything in his fingers.  
  
His fingers were _gone._  
  
Feeling his heart thudding violently in his throat, John pulled his hand in front of his face, trying to block out the intense light streaming in through the hole in the ceiling, and then focused on his hand.  
  
And then he tried to focus past the thing blocking his view of his hand, to try and spot his hand.  
  
A strange grey-black stump stood in front of him, with three slender purple claws on it. He winced backwards, trying to roll over again. A pokemon must have been standing over him, holding a paw in front of him, it was the only thing that made sense.  
  
But then the arm moved.  
  
The arm moved when he moved his arm.  
  
John started to panic worse, groping around for something to pull himself up with. His palm found the edge of an overturned machine and he grasped it intently, purple claws digging furrows in the metal as he heaved himself into a sitting position.  
  
His body was gone.  
  
Instead, a furred expanse of grey-black fur stretched over his stomach and thighs, leading down to powerful legs and clawed feet.  
  
John hyperventilated, his vision starting to dim, and the world beginning to tilt crazily. He closed his eyes and collapsed back to try and let the dizzy spell pass.  
  


* * *

  
  
John wasn’t even aware that he’d passed out, but when he opened his eyes after seeming to have closed them for just a moment, a shaft of moonlight was filtering into the broken lab.  
  
Groaning, he pulled himself back into a sitting position. He could hear his own heartbeat, thundering faster than it should ever go. He took a deep breath, inhaling and holding it, counting the beats of his heart to try and slow it.  
  
He tried to lean forwards, but something stopped him, tugging at the back of his head, and he reached back behind himself to find a long, silky mane of _hair_ stuck there. The bottom half of it was trapped under his own weight, and with a little bit of a halfhearted, weak wiggling, he managed to free it.  
  
A heavy golden band _thunked_ against one of the machines, and he swayed weakly, pulling it around to stare at it dumbly. Where had it come from? What was it there for? Why did he have _hair_ now? He had had a haircut not two weeks previously!  
  
Rolling awkwardly onto hands and knees, John half-crawled, half-slithered out to the front of the lab, tattered clothing falling from his body as he went. The door opened easily enough and immediately, John’s ears were assaulted by the noises outside the building. The soft hoot of a noctowl, the scurrying of something small and fast rustling through the underbrush across the _roaring_ stream.  
  
It took John several long moments to realise that the rushing in his ears was the sound of the nearby stream and not any damage they had acquired in the explosion.  
  
John staggered weakly towards the stream, dropping to his knees at the edge of it and dunking his arms into the water, trying to scoop up some of it with his deformed hands. The water just splashed away, and he groaned, before leaning forwards and trying to drink straight from the stream.  
  
Immediately, water went directly up John’s nose, and he spluttered in surprise, flailing and falling into the shallow water at the edge of the stream. An odd sensation gripped him, like walking into long water with sweatpants on, and a sudden heavy weight of _wet hair_ was dragging his head backwards and downwards, threatening to send him under the water.  
  
Steadying himself with a clawed hand on a nearby rock, John managed to right himself. He shuddered as wet hair cascaded down his back, spreading the cold across his body.  
  
And then he looked down and caught sight of himself in the reflection from the surface of the water in the moonlight.  
  
A wide-eyed zoroark stared back.  
  
John lifted trembling claws to his face, and the zoroark did too, until he poked the sharp tip into his own cheek by accident and winced.  
  
Swallowing past a dry lump in his throat, John leaned closer, finally looking down at himself properly. He reached a hand, a _paw_ , behind himself to grasp at the mane of wet hair behind him, bringing it around to his front to stare at. Purple locks, dark tips, and a golden band.  
  
_Shiny Zoroark_  
  
_I have a way to get one now._  
  
John remembered snatches of what the drunk scientist had been jabbering about, and now wished he’d been paying more attention.  
  
Swallowing weakly, John pinched himself, and then bit down on his own tongue as he winced with the pain, and then gave a sharp yip of annoyance at the pain in his tongue.  
  
This was all wrong.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Yes! _Yes_!” John shouted, stumbling out of the treeline and onto the path in front of a young trainer.  
  
The trainer stopped dead in his tracks, staring, mouth agape.  
  
“Help, please!” John begged, rising to his paws and stumbling another step forwards. “I’m _stuck_ like this! You need to call… the police! The pokecentre! Anyone!”  
  
The trainer gawped, and then his hand went immediately to his hip. There was a flash of movement, and then the world disappeared.  
  
John was adrift in some kind of void. It was like floating in a pool of liquid steel, with soft ripples gently lulling him to stop resisting, the warm heavy weight of the liquid all around him beckoning him to rest awhile and submit to the whims of the ocean.  
  
It was like waking up from a rough dream as John fought back, finding himself rising from on his back and gasping for air. A pokeball clattered to the ground nearby, and for a bewildering moment, John wasn’t quite sure where he was or what had happened.  
  
“Did you… did you just use a fucking pokeball on me?!” John asked, eyes narrowing angrily at the trainer.  
  
The trainer took a step backwards, looking shocked and wary, before his determination returned and he threw a second ball. John was ready for it this time, and dodged it, or so he thought. But then that same lulling calm washed over him as the pokeball tried to subjugate him.  
  
This time, John took only a second to break free of the ball, returning to the real world in a snarling fury, feet digging furrows out of the grass as he sprang at the trainer.  
  
The trainer yelped and stumbled backwards as John swiped at him, and his claws swept past the youth’s face, scant inches from scarring him for life. John’s mane whipped around, and the heavy weight on the end of it tugged him off balance, making him stagger, and forcing him to adjust his body weight, giving the trainer a chance to scrabble away and back to his feet.  
  
“Ghastly, go!” the trainer called, throwing a pokeball.  
  
John Instinctively tried to dodge it, but the pokeball came up short, sending a flash of red light out to reveal a transparent pokemon. John’s paws tightened into fists, and he stamped a foot angrily. “I’m not a _fucking pokemon_!”  
  
“Ghastly, bite!”  
  
Immediately, John felt a searing pain stabbing through his arm as ethereal teeth bit down just below his shoulder. Automatically, he lifted a paw, trying to scrape the pokemon off. But his claws swept right though the ghost-type.  
  
John’s eyes widened, and he started to breathe harder, feeling his heart pumping in his ears. His claws scraped his own fur, but still the ghastly held on tight.  
  
A sudden jolt of pain knifed through him, lancing from his shoulder, down the length of spine and seemingly directly through the core of his body, making him tense up and stagger unsteadily. His entire body tightened as the electrifying pain coursed through him, and it took several seconds to clear.  
  
As he became aware of his surroundings again, he caught sight of the trainer readying another pokeball, picking his spot to throw like a pitcher waiting for a lapse in the batter’s concentration. John felt another lance of pain down to the core of his body just as the trainer threw his ball.  
  
A large rock _smashed_ into the side of the pokeball, sending it bouncing off-course. John barely had time to register what had happened before there was a sudden new line of pain across his arm. His body twisted with the impact of a set of claws, and he staggered again. But the ghastly fared much worse, ripped off of his arm and sent rolling and thudding through the grass in a heap.  
  
A shimmer passed in the air between him and the trainer, and the trainer blinked, eyes widening, seeming to lose sight of him, staring around wildly. “What?! No!” he cried, leaping forwards and rummaging furiously in the grass, heading for where John was standing.  
  
John winced at the pain in his arm and then took several steps to the side, and the trainer brushed right past him blindly, arms reaching in front of him, searching desperately. “No, come back!”  
  
A _powerful_ grip wrapped around his paw and _yanked_ him towards the treeline. “What are you doing?!” a feminine voice hissed from the other side of a mane of hair. “ _Run_!”  
  
John groaned, but did as ordered, running as fast and as carefully as his new strange legs would allow him, until there was enough distance between them and the trainer that his mysterious rescuer stopped.  
  
The new zoroark turned to regard him, blue-green eyes narrowed with confusion and annoyance. “Why aren’t you using illusion? Were you hit _that_ hard?”  
  
A pokemon was speaking to him.  
  
John stared, mouth agape. “I… I…”  
  
“Hmph, useless,” the zoroark said, waving her paw dismissively and then turning to leave. She was there one moment, and then gone the next, seemingly evaporating.  
  
“No, wait!” John cried, reaching for the spot where she was with outstretched paws. “I… I don’t…”  
  
John fell to his knees, and then sat back on his haunches, holding his head in his new ungainly paws, almost poking one of his eyes out. He was vaguely aware of tears staining his muzzle, dripping down onto his new purple claws. This had to be some kind of bizarre dream. Or a hallucination. He couldn’t _actually_ be a pokemon, could he?  
  
“What are you _doing_?” the zoroark hissed in his ears.  
  
John was so startled that he jerked back and fell over, having to clumsily pull himself back to his paws, grabbing his mane with a paw and bodily throwing it over his shoulder so it wouldn’t unbalance him. The female zoroark was standing, watching him, arms crossed, looking annoyed.  
  
“I don’t…” John started again, before he just sighed in defeat and sank. “I’m not… _this_. I’m a _human_.”  
  
The female arched an eyebrow at him dubiously. “...Really?”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” John protested, staring down at his claws. He flexed them slowly, watching them move. “I… I don’t know how this happened.”  
  
“You are delusional,” the female responded curtly. “Humans do not just turn into pokemon.”  
  
“You got that right,” John responded flatly. “I can show you where it happened.”  
  
The female stared at him, eyes narrowing slowly for a moment. “Why would I humour you when you are clearly a few eggs short of a clutch?”  
  
“Because there’s some small part of you that believes me,” John responded, staring up at her.  
  
The female pursed her lips, and then tossed her mane with a haughty snort. “Fine. Show me.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Look, there!” John said, pointing with a purple claw at the broken building. Smoke still spilled from the hole in the wall, dispersing into a dirty fog in the moonlight.  
  
The female paused, lifting her muzzle to snuffle at the air, before wrinkling her nose deeply. “That smells… wrong.”  
  
John pointed emphatically at the building. “Do you believe me now?”  
  
“No,” the female responded immediately. “All I see is a broken human building.”  
  
John grumbled, clenching his new large fists, tossing his hair on instinct and pointing with a purple claw. “Look, that’s my car,” he said, pointing at the late-model ute parked next to the building. Several of the windows were blown out, and glass was scattered across the ground, sparkling in the moonlight. “Come have a look inside.”  
  
John started moving towards the building, but the female refused to follow him, shaking her head slowly. “Not a chance… Can you not _smell_ that?”  
  
Pausing, John lifted his head, and inhaled carefully, actually pausing to think over the smell in the air. Immediately, he reeled backwards, lifting paws to his muzzle to block his nose, squinting, his eyes watering. There was some acrid smell emanating from the building, and now that he was actually focusing on smells, it was pervasive in the very worst of ways. “Oh what is _that_?!”  
  
“I do not know,” the female responded flatly, peering at the building for a long moment before snorting and turning away. “And I do not wish to find out.”  
  
John held his nose with one paw, and walked upwind a few steps, pausing to inhale deeply and clear his head. He looked back over his shoulder at the female zoroark, his ears flattening helplessly. “I… I need your help.”  
  
The zoroark paused her lips, looking him up and down. “That much is obvious. Is this just some… twisted trick to try and mate with me?”  
  
John gave her a bewildered stare. “I… yes, actually,” he snorted once, straightening and turning to stare at her. “I’m pretending to be a human turned into a zoroark and totally letting myself get *shoved into a pokeball* which was terrifying, by the way, so I could try to tempt you out of hiding when I didn’t even know you were there, and this ‘human building’ just conveniently exploded a few hours ago completely ancillary to this plan.”  
  
The zoroark stared at him, eyes narrowed intently, sizing him up, before she snorted once and turned away. “Come. My den is far.”  
  
John grumbled, almost considering turning down her offer and striking out on his own, before realising the futility of the notion, his shoulders slumping. He nodded, acquiescing. “Thank you… uh… Do you have a name? Do wild pokemon have names?”  
  
“I am Talia,” she responded, without even looking over her shoulder, “In my language, it means ‘summer rain’.”  
  
“Oh… that’s pretty,” John said, ambling after her, lifting his paws to run them through his new mane self-consciously. “I’m John… just John.”  
  
Talia snorted once, acknowledging his words but not responding to them in any other way.  
  


* * *

  
  
For a solid hour, John followed Talia, occasionally having to stop so that Talia could place a branch laden with berries in his grasp, using him basically as a beast-of-burden. John couldn’t complain though, at least not without feeling churlish.  
  
He recognized some of the berries, and some of them were making him uncharacteristically hungry. Of course he had eaten Oran berries as a human, they were almost as good as coffee for restoring energy. But they certainly hadn’t made his stomach grumble like it did now.  
  
“Hey are we…” John paused, lifting his muzzle and scenting the air, ears perking up. “I can smell… shuca berries!” he said excitedly. “We’re near town!”  
  
Talia looked at him over her shoulder, and nodded once. “Yes, my den is not far from town.”  
  
“Geeze, we had a zoroark living nearby all this time and didn’t know it?” John wondered aloud.  
  
“Of course you would not know,” Talia said with a faint air of smugness. “Humans are incredibly easy to trick.”  
  
John stared at her, but bit his tongue, ears flattening.  
  
Talia giggled softly. “You must have been a human… your expression betrays your emotions all too well.”  
  
John grumbled at that, but followed after her as she led him along a path he vaguely remembered from his childhood. A large mountain rose up near the town, and Talia lead him right to the base of it, to an unremarkable cliff face.  
  
And then she walked right through it.  
  
John blinked slowly, not quite sure what he had just witnessed. But then Talia’s arm extended through the rockface and beckoned for him to follow. Wincing inwardly, John stepped forwards, cringing as the rock rose to meet his paws, but his feet went right through it. He stumbled, unbalanced, and dropped to one knee, squeezing the branches of berries tight against his chest and causing several to pop free and roll across the rough floor. Beyond what John now realised was an illusory wall, was a modest cave of sorts carved into the rockface itself. It was burrowed out with claws, as John could see clawmarks along every surface, except for the floor.  
  
Instead, the floor was covered in a layer of soft dirt and dried grass, with stone worn smooth by traffic over the years.  
  
Talia was wordlessly pointing at a depression, where one or two old berries were sitting, drying.  
  
John carried his armful of berries over to the depression, and then carefully laid them inside it. “This is where you live?”  
  
“This is my summer home,” Talia responded immediately. “I winter in Johto at a palace.”  
  
John narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re making fun of me.”  
  
Talia smirked. “You have a singular ability to ask dumb questions. I understand now why humans do not converse with pokemon.”  
  
“So you believe that I’m not a pokemon!” John said triumphantly.  
  
Talia moved to a corner of the little cave, and then curled up on a bed of soft grass, resting her chin on cross paws to stare at him. “Perhaps. You are too… clumsy to have made it past being a zorua without being caught. Especially as one of the hued.”  
  
John paused at that, sitting down on his haunches and watching her intently. “Hued?”  
  
“Your colouration,” Talia said matter-of-factly. “Your kind prizes it very much.”  
  
John lifted his purple claws, and then picked up the end of his mane, before nodding in understanding. “Right, because I’m shiny. You guys don’t like that?”  
  
“It makes you a target,” Talia said matter-of-factly. She lifted a paw to silence him before he could ask anything further. “Rest. It is late and I wish to sleep.You can ask me questions tomorrow. Until then, I will not suffer the yapping of pups.”  
  
John gave her a long, incensed stare. “Did you just…. Did you just call me a _pup_?”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”  
  
John stared. “I’m _bigger_ than you!”  
  
“Size does not equate maturity,” Talia responded smugly.  
  
John opened his mouth to respond, but Talia silenced him by lifting her paw again. “Silence. Or you will spend the remainder of the night under the illusion of an amorous Muk.”  
  
Narrowing eyes at Talia, John pondered on her threat, before he snorted to himself and gathered his mane tossing it out to use as a pillow and then curling up into a ball.  
  


* * *

  
  
John stirred from a fitful sleep, uncurled for a moment and stretching. There was a particular _ache_ near his loins, and he curled back up again, opening an eye and staring in mild confusion at the throbbing purple object in front of him. It looked like a sex toy of some kind, but so much more _alive_.  
  
It wasn’t until a lock of his own mane draped over it and he _felt_ the weight that he woke up enough to realise what it was.  
  
That was his _cock_!  
  
It was bright purple, veiny, and distinctly canid, with a pointed, dished tip, and a thick, yet slender length that swept down to a full, imposing-looking knot.  
  
John stared, uncertain what to make of the whole thing, slowly shifting into a seated position and staring down at his strange new equipment. It was so achingly stiff that it bobbed faintly in time with his heartbeat, twitching slightly in a slow, hypnotising rhythm.  
  
Reaching down, John grasped around the base of his new cock, feeling the strange _warmth_ and stiffness of it. It was so incredibly hard and had a strangely high temperature, and was completely alien to him.  
  
Talia cleared her throat loudly.  
  
John leapt up into a proper seating position and swung his mane around to cover his lap, before a sharp pain shuddered through his entire body as the heavy gold band in his mane _slammed_ against his erect cock and bounced off. He doubled over, squeezing his forearms over his middle and gasping in pain, shuddering from nose to toes. “F-fuck!” he hissed.  
  
“That looked painful,” Talia stated unnecessarily, giggling.  
  
“Y-you think?” John hissed between clenched teeth, uncurling slowly, covering himself with his mane, panting slightly and peering up at her, teeth bared in a pained snarl.  
  
Talia snorted, and then reached for his mane. “Let me see. I will ensure you did not injure yourself.”  
  
John stared at her, and then huffed slightly, his ears flattening. “F-fine,” he mumbled, looking away, feeling his cheeks burning as he lifted his mane away to let her see the angrily-throbbing length of his purple cock.  
  
“It seems undamaged,” Talia stated simply, inspecting it closely.  
  
“Oh good,” John said, moving his mane back to cover himself over again, before he was brought up short by Talia gripping his knot! Her grasp was gentle, holding him steady and then turning him delicately to the side to inspect him carefully, peering at the place where the ring had impacted him. But even that light squeeze had John _aching_ , sending a quiver pulsing up the length of that stiff purple flesh and making him want to grind his hips.  
  
“C-careful!” John hissed, ears flattening fully back against his skull. “It’s sensitive!”  
  
“I know,” Talia responded simply, turning his cock delicately to the other side, inspecting it carefully. “You have a slight mark. But no permanent damage that I can see. Everything seems to be working correctly.”  
  
“Well I’d hardly know myself,” John said with a strained smile, feet digging into the floor, claws scratching against the rocks on reflex. “T-thank you.”  
  
“You truly do not know how to use illusion?” Talia asked, staring at him in wonder. “This clearly makes you uncomfortable and yet you cannot hide yourself.”  
  
“No, I don’t,” John said plaintively. “C-can you… let that… go?”  
  
“Your knot?” Talia asked pointedly, giving it a little bit of a squeeze.  
  
John’s eyes widened and his fur stood on end at the intense sensation, and his hips gave a buck on reflex, a dribble of precum spilling from the dished tip of his cock and slowly drooling down the underside of it. “Y-yes, that!”  
  
Talia stared up at him, and then leaned in laying her tongue against the underside of his cock and drawing a long lick towards his tip, soft pink tongue dragging against him in a slow caress, capturing the dribble of his precum until her soft lick could draw off the tip in a subtle flick.  
  
John’s cock _throbbed_ urgently, and he stared down at the female, mouth agape, feeling his heart skip several beats.  
  
Talia tilted her head, staring at him, and then closed her lips over his tip, nursing on him gently.  
  
Immediately, a thick rush of precum splashed directly over her tongue, coating it in his taste.  
  
John stared down at her, stunned. She was sucking his cock!  
  
Talia drew back, releasing him entirely and working her tongue against the roof of her mouth, giving a thoughtful noise.  
  
And then she _swallowed_.  
  
John’s cock gave an urgent throb.  
  
“You _taste_ like a zoroark,” Talia stated, looking thoughtful, before she turned towards the cave entrance. “Come, I need to drink, to wash your taste from my mouth.”  
  
John stared at her, quivering from his ears to his toes again, before he huffed and rolled over, rising to his feet. “Fine. Can you… can you help me sneak into town? I need to find someone, and tell them what’s going on.”  
  
“They will not understand you,” Talia stated, looking back at him.  
  
“How can you be so certain?”  
  
“Humans and pokemon do not speak the same. If you can speak to me, you cannot speak to them.”  
  
John grumbled to himself at that, but had no way to refute her logic. “I’ll just write it down then.”  
  
“That may work,” Talia pondered, before shrugging her shoulders. “Now come, I thirst.”  
  
John grumbled slightly again, rising to his paws and pulling his mane around in front of his body, using it to cover up his _very_ obvious erection, silently willing it to go down.  
  
Talia looked back at him, noticing, and then smirking and giggling.  
  


* * *

  
  
John followed Talia through a path she obviously knew well, heading down to the nearby stream. Thankfully, before they got too far, John’s erection had subsided and he managed to clear his head a little; though it was difficult to chase away the image of Talia smiling up at him as she nursed on his cocktip. That thought almost had his cock sliding back out of the sheath it had receded into, and he shook himself mentally.  
  
He wasn’t going to fantasize about fucking a _pokemon_. He just wasn’t.  
  
Talia dipped both paws into the water, gathering up some to drink. John moved to kneel beside her, doing the same. He choked at first, having stuffed his nose too deep into the water and losing what water didn’t end up going up his nose.  
  
Calming himself, John snorted, clearing his nose, and then carefully scooped up some water again, this time carefully tilting it so he could drink it without it going directly up his nose. After a moment, he realised Talia was staring at him.  
  
“What?” John asked, peering at her.  
  
“You are… very ungainly,” Talia stated.  
  
“I’m not... used to this,” John responded meekly. “I’ve got this huge long nose and these claws and… _so much hair_.”  
  
“It is very pretty hair though,” Talia said with a slight smirk.  
  
John self-consciously wound the end of his mane around one of his claws. “Yes, but it’s… weird. And heavy.”  
  
“You will get used to it,” Talia stated simply.  
  
John frowned at that, staring at the purple end of his mane. “I hope not. I can be fixed. I’ll be back to my normal self before next week.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Talia stated simply. “But all of the stuff did explode in that building. You will have to acquire more of them.”  
  
John grumbled to himself, nodding with a sigh. “Hopefully Rian can fix it soon.”  
  
“You do not enjoy being a zoroark?” Talia asked curiously.  
  
John shook his head. “No, not particularly so far.” He didn’t add ‘except for when you were going down on me’ and kept that particular rogue thought to himself.  
  
Talia smirked. “You will.”  
  
“You seem certain of that,” John challenged, looking up at her with a frown.  
  
The female grinned and nodded knowingly. “Humans are singularly boring. Being a zoroark is clearly superior.”  
  
“Oh, clearly,” John responded dubiously.  
  


* * *

  
  
John reached a clawed paw out, stroking it down the length of the shimmering air in front of him.  
  
Talia slapped his paw with her own. “Do not interrupt my illusion!” she scowled.  
  
The main street of town was quiet so early in the morning, but Talia insisted on cloaking them both in illusion before they entered the town proper. He had no idea what image was being projected to outside viewers, but from the inside, it was like looking through a faint heat-haze. The world outside was distorted, and slightly hazy.  
  
A young man jogging on the street passed them, coming within a few feet, but made no indication he noticed anything was amiss.  
  
“Can I… do this?” John asked, curious.  
  
Talia snorted once. “This is probably not a good time to learn, but yes, probably.”  
  
“Weird,” John murmured, reaching forwards again to try and touch the shimmer, before remembering and snatching his paw back.  
  
An old man was tending to his garden, at the back of his house, and John jerked his head towards him. “Him, I wanna go over there.”  
  
“Very well,” Talia said, moving down the alleyway between the two buildings. John glanced around, deciding that the coast was clear enough, and then leapt over the fence, leaving the safety of Talia’s illusion, and padding towards the old man.  
  
The old man paused, looking up after a moment, peering back over his shoulder with some small amount of concern as he caught sight of the towering zoroark behind him. “Good morning?”  
  
John dropped down onto his new knees, crawling closer to the old man. “Uh… good morning! I need your help. I need to get in contact with a scientist, Rian.”  
  
The old man stared at him, and then smiled slightly, nodding in a strange way. “I agree entirely.”  
  
John frowned. “Can you understand me?”  
  
The old man peered at him, and then lifted a hand. “Zoroark, zor, yes,”  
  
John’s ears flattened, and his claws dug into the grass. “No, I’m _human_. I need to talk to _Rian_.”  
  
“Are you hungry?” the old man asked, carefully pulling himself to his feet and dusting off his knees. He took off his gardening gloves, slapping them slightly to get the dirt off them, and then turning and heading for his back door. “Wait here, I’ll get you something to eat.”  
  
John could only stare, watching him go, before he turned to the freshly-turned earth. He knelt at the edge of the garden, claw extending to begin scratching in the dirt.  
  
The back door opened again, and John whirled around, crouching in place, ready to spring away if a pokeball was present.  
  
Instead, the old man was bringing out a plate of biscuits, chocolate-chip, and John could smell _everything_. From the slightly stale but oh-so-delicious outer shell, to the dark chocolate used in the biscuits themselves. It made his stomach almost turn over in excitement.  
  
“Want one?” the old man offered, holding out a biscuit.  
  
John gingerly took it, biting into it eagerly and enjoying the taste of it exploding over his new taste-buds. There was something slightly ashy and artificial to the taste, but the chocolate mostly masked it.  
  
“What’s this?” the old man asked, looked at the scratches in the earth.  
  
**I AM HUMAN**  
  
John looked down at his handiwork, pointing at the words and then gesticulating at himself firmly, nodding intently.  
  
The old man smiled, looking from the scratchings, and then to the zoroark, and then back again, nodding good-naturedly.  
  
John paused, staring at him, feeling a slow sense of creeping dread.  
  
He stared down at the words, reading them back to himself.  
  
**I AM HUMAN**  
  
It was simple, easy to understand. There was no way it wasn’t understandable.  
  
Frowning, he swept the dirt flat with the back of his paw, chewing on his tongue thoughtfully. He looked up; he could see the pokecentre over a hedge, and more importantly, he could see the sign reading ‘pokecentre’.  
  
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he scratched out ‘pokecentre’ in the dirt, and then looked up at the pokecentre sign.  
  
John swallowed thickly, feeling that slowly rising sense of panic building faster in the pit of his stomach.  
  
The two words were completely different.  
  
He had definitely scratched ‘pokecentre’ into the dirt, and ‘pokecentre’ was easily readable above the actual pokecentre.  
  
But when he looked back and forth between the two of them, they were completely different.  
  
John stamped his foot repeatedly, paws grasping at his own ears, his eyes darting back and forth in a panic.  
  
A paw gently found his wrist. Talia.  
  
“It is not working, we have to go,” Talia stated.  
  
“Would you like a biscuit as well?” the old man asked, offering Talia one.  
  
Talia frowned, ears flattening, but she took one of the biscuits.  
  
The old man smiled, shuffling back towards his home.  
  
“I don’t understand… That’s ‘pokecentre’! But… but it’s not the same and…”  
  
“No, it is not, but we have to leave before everyone wakes up,” Talia pointed out. “We cannot stay here while you figure it out.”  
  
John sighed, shoulders drooping. “Yeah, you’re right. Not looking like I do,” he admitted, kicking a clod of dirt in annoyance. He snorted once, and then quickly ate the last of the biscuit from the old man, before stepping back into the shimmering air of Talia’s illusion.  
  


* * *

  
  
“I don’t understand,” John said, staring down at his paws and slowly clenching and unclenching them. They had returned to the cave already, and Talia was happily eating oran berries.  
  
“Humans do not understand pokemon,” Talia responded simply. “This is not difficult to understand.”  
  
“No, my _writing_. I wrote it down and he still didn’t understand…” John replied, distractedly scratching a word into the sand and then staring at it. “How can I… just forget to write?”  
  
“Like you can just forget how to speak?” Talia asked, gesturing with half an oran berry she was eating.  
  
John frowned, chewing on his tongue for a moment before yelping and then stopping, realising that his teeth were far too sharp for that now. He heaved a sigh, ears flattening. “Yeah, that’s a thing, I guess. Ugh. Maybe…” He trailed off, scratching at the ground with a footclaw. “Maybe a _keyboard_ …”  
  
“There is a ‘key board’ at the hotel, I have seen it,” Talia offered helpfully.  
  
John stared at her in confusion.  
  
“It holds the keys?” Talia explained.  
  
John blinked once. “No, a _keyboard_. Like, for a computer!”  
  
Talia tilted her head to the left.  
  
John heaved another sigh. “Like… in the pokecentre?”  
  
“Oh, the glowing box. Yes, those,” Talia responded, humming thoughtfully. “That would be quite difficult to access without being caught.”  
  
“I need you to teach me how to do illusions,” John stated determinedly.  
  
“Errr… _do_ an illusion,” Talia said, waving a paw at him dismissively.  
  
“What?” John asked blankly.  
  
“I do not know how to _teach_ that! I have known how to do since I… Since I was hatched!” Talia responded helplessly. “It would be like… like you asking me to teach you how to _breathe_. Or sleep!”  
  
John frowned, chewing on his lip anxiously. “But I’ve never… I don’t know how to illusion. How… what do you do when you want to illusion something into existence?”  
  
Talia gestured with her paw again. “I just think of what I want to appear, or project, and then I just… make it happen.”  
  
“Oh, well I don’t know what I want to project…” John responded blankly.  
  
“That could very well be your problem,” Talia responded curtly.  
  
John frowned at her suggestion, pondering on it. What did he _really_ want? Immediately, the image of Talia nursing on his cocktip came unbidden to his thoughts, and he quickly pushed that thought down, hearing his pulse racing in his ears.  
  
A cupcake, a nice, pink-frosted cupcake with yellow sprinkles. That was entirely safe and clean.  
  
John focused on the cupcake, his new face scrunching up with the effort, his ears flattening back fully as he tried to will a cupcake into existence.  
  
Talia stared at him, arching an eyebrow. “Are you thinking of a destination?”  
  
“Destination?” John asked blankly.  
  
“Yes, where you want the illusion to _go_.”  
  
John blinked, and then cast his gaze around. There was a shimmer of illusion, and a cupcake appeared on top of Talia’s head, between her ears.  
  
Talia frowned, her ears flattening. “Are you illusioning something on my head?”  
  
John balked a little bit and the illusion faded, and he blinked once or twice. “Uh, no, no I’m not!”  
  
Talia narrowed eyes at him, snorting once. “Attempt to illusion something where I can see it.”  
  
Frowning, John turned to the side of the cave, picturing a giant cupcake in his head and ‘projecting’ it at the wall.  
  
Talia stared at him, shaking her head slowly.  
  
“What?” John asked, staring at the wall, and then back at Talia. Nothing had happened, at least not that he could see.  
  
“You are projecting the illusion _at_ the wall, not _on_ to it. You are very… pink,” Talia stated.  
  
John blinked, looking down at himself. There was the faintest shimmer over his fur, but otherwise, he couldn’t see anything amiss. “Oh uh… how do I stop?”  
  
Talia frowned, head tilting to the left, one ear perking up as she puzzled out the answer. “Think of… think of your breathing. You do it automatically without thinking, yes? You must treat your illusion accordingly. Take control of it deliberately, and then… just stop doing it.”  
  
Blinking at the abstract idea, John stared down at his paws, deliberately ‘focusing’ on the illusion and then mentally ‘deleting’ it. The shimmer around his paws disappeared, and he blinked once. “Did it work?”  
  
“Yes, very good,” Talia said, smiling. “You will be able to disguise yourself as simple things, such as rocks, or very dense bushes, without much trouble.”  
  
“Oh yes, a rock posted up in front of the PC, that’ll work,” John said, sarcasm dripping from his tone.  
  
Talia stared at him, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “You will not evolve without experience.”  
  
“Was that…” John stared at her. “Was that a pokemon _proverb_?”  
  
“Yes,” Talia stated with a dismissive wave of her paw. “Very well, attempt to show me you as you were as a human.”  
  
John frowned in thought, and then turned to her, ‘projecting’ himself.  
  
Talia winced backwards, her ears flattening. “No, no that will not do.”  
  
“What?” John asked blankly. “Is it wrong?”  
  
“It is exceptionally wrong,” Talia stated flatly. She moved to the back of her cave, rummaging around in a stash of things she had collected over the years, coming up with a small hand-mirror. She moved back to John, holding it up.  
  
John looked into the mirror bemusedly, and then leapt backwards in shock, paws going to his muzzle, eyes wide. The face that greeted him in the reflection was something out of a nightmare; the basic human features were all there, a nose, a mouth, eyesockets, but everything was… _blurry_. There was no definition anywhere, just vague impressions of shapes and colours, with a sickly uniform-coloured skin stretched taught over featureless eyesockets devoid of life, no eyebrows, no hair, no teeth or tongue, just a mouth slightly-ajar like a stroke victim with a terrifying inky blackness emanating from within.  
  
“I doubt very much that you would wish to enter the pokecentre like this,” Talia stated, lowering the mirror.  
  
John nodded emphatically. “No, well… it’d sure clear the place out pretty quick. Not very inconspicuous though.”  
  
“You need to add details,” Talia said, holding up the mirror again. “Think of things to add and fix. What was your hair like? Your eyes?”  
  
John frowned, opening his mouth to respond, before closing it again, puzzled. “I… I don’t really… know,” he admitted, looking a little bit surprised himself at the revelation. “I never really… _examined_ myself as I was. It wasn’t all that important. I just had brown hair and sort of blue-green eyes… a mole on my chin…” John blinked. “Nothing I could specifically _conjure_ up though.”  
  
“Well this is a problem,” Talia stated bluntly. “You cannot create _yourself_ if you do not _know_ yourself. We could find someone on the road for you to impersonate, illusion-wise?”  
  
John baulked at that idea. “No, no.... Maybe…” he frowned, scratching his arm with a long claw, ears flattened. “I have some old pictures, on my computer. Would they work?”  
  
“If you have one of those why do you need to go to the pokecenter?” Talia asked simply.  
  
John gave a sheepish little smile. “I kinda just used my phone for hotspot coverage and the like… I don’t have any internet at my home. And my phone was on me in the laboratory. I think it’s exploded now? I didn’t find it. Or my keys.”  
  
Talia sighed. “Very well, let us visit your den.”  
  
“My home,” John corrected.  
  
“Your wooden den,” Talia corrected.  
  


* * *

  
  
_Project your surroundings. Project your surroundings_.  
  
John was focusing so much on the ‘invisibility’ illusion that he kept stumbling trying to creep up the stairs into his apartment. It was part of a small apartment complex, on the outskirts of town. His vehicle wasn’t there, still at the laboratory. John reached up above his door carefully, feeling around in the overhang, until he found the spare key he had hidden there just in case, several months previously. It took a bit of fiddling, but he managed to get the key in the door and then push it open, slipping inside. Talia followed him a moment later, and he closed the door behind her.  
  
John’s apartment was compact, with a kitchen immediately inside the door, a small area for watching television in front, his bed, and a table for eating meals next to it. It looked somewhat like a hotel room, except more lived-in. He had a poster of a pokemon rock band on the wall, there was a big PC set up on the counter, there was a Switch under the television, and his bed was unmade.  
  
Talia disappeared into his bathroom, inspecting his soap, while John moved over to the PC. It was still powered on, and after nudging the mouse, the screen came on. He froze, as he heard a noise from next door, before realising it was just his next-door neighbor’s kid turning the television on.  
  
His paws were much too large to work a keyboard properly, and the screen asking for his password was quite daunting. Cursing himself for picking an alphanumeric password, John started to enter his password, carefully pushing keys with his new long claws.  
  
Talia returned from bathroom with one of his bottles of shampoo in her paws. It was some scented lotion, made to smell like apples and peaches. “This smells nice,” she said, pushing her nose against the top of the bottle and inhaling. “Does it taste as good?”  
  
“Goodness no,” John said with a faint laugh, before turning back to his keyboard. He grumbled as the wrong password prompt came up again. “My password isn’t working… and my hunt-and-peck isn’t exactly strong.”  
  
“I do not know your password,” Talia said unnecessarily, picking up his salt shaker from the table and inspecting it.  
  
John blinked once and then snorted. “I’m entering it right, I’m certain of it…” he said, and then trailed off. If he couldn’t write ‘human’ words any more, could he _type_ them? Frowning, he closed his eyes, and drifted his talons over the keyboard, trying to use muscle-memory to remember his password.  
  
_1nd1g0_  
  
It was _six_ characters, how could it be so hard to type?  
  
John hit the first key, and then froze, staring down at it. Was that ‘one’? ‘One’ was the second key from the left on the top row of keys on the keyboard under the ‘functions’ row. So… why had he pushed the ‘one’ key somewhere in the middle of the keyboard?  
  
Staring at the keyboard, John carefully pushed the key in the position where the ‘one’ was in his memory, feeling as though he was doing something incredibly unintuitive, somehow. After closing his eyes and focusing on remembering where the keys were, he managed to input a password that was finally accepted by the computer, and his emails popped up on the screen. They tried to load, but just sat there with a spinning logo, constantly searching for a connection to his phone that was long-gone now.  
  
John furtively turned the screen to the side, before grasping the mouse with both paws and maneuvering it carefully over to the desktop, starting to click through various file folders. Double-clicking was hard with his new claws, as was accurately moving the mouse itself, and his claws were digging furrows into the mousepad.  
  
Talia took some steps to the side, so she could watch what was happening on the screen.  
  
Sensing her movement, John splayed his ears back, hesitating with opening the files. “Uhhh, Talia, can you just… this is kinda private?”  
  
“It is very private, just the two of us in fact,” Talia stated matter-of-factly.  
  
John sighed deeply and then gave a mental shrug before opening up the folder. Immediately, thumbnails showed up. Even from their minimized state it was apparent that they were of a sexual nature. The pictures were mostly of his ex-girlfriend going down on him.  
  
Talia leaned past him, squinting at the small images. “I see.”  
  
John fidgeted for a moment, scrolling down through the many pictures, looking for the end of the album.  
  
“She is very ugly,” Talia observed.  
  
“To a zoroark, maybe,” John replied, scrolling towards the end of the album. The pictures changed focus, instead showing John going down on his ex. She had taken the phone from him to take some pictures for herself. It was about the only pictures of himself that John could think of.  
  
“Do you find me attractive?” Talia asked, looking at him sideways.  
  
John blinked once, struggling with the mouse to get it to double-click without sliding off the thumbnail. “What?”  
  
“Do you find me attractive?” Talia repeated, arching an eyebrow at him.  
  
“I uh… I guess I don’t think about it much,” John admitted, giving her a sidelong glance and a quick once-up-and-down.  
  
Talia turned to face him properly, head canting to the side slightly as she tossed her mane. “Well I am asking you to think about it,” she stated, one paw on her hips. “Do you find me attractive?”  
  
John stared, a little bit off-put at being asked so directly. “Uh… yes,” he decided, blinking once.  
  
“Good,” Talia purred, turning back to the screen. “You are quite ugly.”  
  
John stared.  
  
“Hideous, in fact,” Talia said, pointing at the screen with a claw. “Very flat-faced. No nose to speak of… no muzzle! And your cheek bones are so…”  
  
“Prominent?” John asked, giving a weak chuckle.  
  
“ _Perpendicular_!” Talia complained. “It is like you ran face-first into a wall and got your face smooshed.”  
  
“Oh so I guess you’re not attracted to me, then?” John asked bluntly.  
  
Talia blinked once, turning to peer at him. “I am quite attracted to you; As a zoroark. As a human you are very unappealing.”  
  
John just stared at her. “Well… that’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”  
  
“You will just have to take advantage of it while you are able,” Talia responded, giving him a long stare.  
  
John blinked once, feeling his cheeks warming, and then turned back to the screen, looking at _himself_. It was very strange, actually _looking_ at his own features, having to take note of them. His hair, his _hairline_ , cheeks, jaw, eye colour, nose, facial hair, lips, and some odd little details like that one bump on his cheek that he’d never really taken notice of or paid any attention to, a small scar over his left brow from smacking into a coffee table when he was younger; the large chip in his left lower canine from getting smacked in the face by a baseball bat after it left someone’s hand from a hard swing at a junior baseball game.  
  
Running his tongue over his new, much sharper teeth, John stared at _himself_.  
  
“So how do I… make this work?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia looked past him, head tilting slightly to the side. “You must project that,” she said, pointing at the screen. “And not get close to anyone. The closer you get, the worse the illusion gets. It is… acceptable in passing, but if someone were to look closely there would be enough ‘wrong’ that they would notice.”  
  
John frowned, squinting at the monitor again and trying to commit his own face to memory. After a few seconds, he closed his eyes, and then ‘projected’ it outwards.  
  
“Very good, you are now singularly unattractive,” Talia stated.  
  
John blinked. “It worked?”  
  
Talia leaned in close, gently turning his face towards her with a clawtip, examining him closely. “Your eyes are too flat, your eyebrows do not exist, and your teeth are much too small. But from a distance, yes, it worked.”  
  
“Think it’ll fool people in the pokecentre long enough for me to send an email?”  
  
Talia frowned thoughtfully, pursing her lips for a moment. “Maybe,” she admitted, before she rose to her paws. Her body shimmered, and then a young teenager with short black hair and a nose-ring stood in front of him. “You must learn to do this,” she said, making a complicated series of movements with her hands.  
  
John stared. “What… what is _that_?”  
  
“This is ‘sign language’,” Talia explained, repeating the motion. “Very few humans speak it, and tend to ignore you if you attempt to converse with them with it.”  
  
“That’s… brilliant,” John stated, staring. “I’ve only seen one or two people using sign language and since I don’t understand them I didn’t pay them any attention… and they’ll just _assume_ I can’t speak!” he said excitedly, turning to face her properly. “Show me again.”  
  
Talia smiled, and repeated the motion. “I only know a few words, but this one has served me well. It means ‘do you speak sign language’.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Armed with his new knowledge, and carefully practising the motions of sign-language, John waited on a hill overlooking the town. Talia had an illusion up, and John was sheltered carefully behind the shimmer in the air, watching the front door of the pokecentre and waiting for a lull.  
  
There were certain periods of the day, John had found, when the pokecentre was quiet. Night time was, surprisingly, when the pokecentre was most busy, given that trainers coming in from the road after a long day of travel wanted to get their pokemon healed, were looking for a place to rest, or even just looking to socialise.  
  
Mornings, also, were a busy period, where trainers were first setting out, getting ready to tackle the battles of that day, wanting to make sure their pokemon were in the best state possible.  
  
But the middle of the day, _lunch time_ , was when it was most quiet. When everyone was out around town getting something to eat, and the battles of the day were put on hold so that people and pokemon alike could get a bite to eat. _That_ was the time John was waiting for.  
  
“Okay, time for me to go, wish me luck,” John said grimly.  
  
“Good luck,” Talia stated simply. “Also, do not forget shoes. And the hairs on your legs.”  
  
John grimaced, but nodded. “Thanks.”  
  


* * *

  
  
A hurried-looking John-the-human wandered into the pokecentre just as lunch was starting. A Nurse Joy, with an audino helper, stood behind the counter, awaiting customers. Nurse Joy bowed to him as he entered, and John went to say hello, before remembering that no humans could actually understand him in his current form.  
  
Unable to sign anything to the nurse except ‘can you speak sign language?’ John opted to instead wave, and then shuffled over to the PC, his heart pounding.  
  
A trainer sat in one of the booths lined along one of the walls, with a stantler standing by his side. He was absent-mindedly feeding the stantler bright blue berries in between reading a magazine.  
  
John settled himself in front of the PC, making sure that he had gotten the hair on his legs absolutely correct, and that his illusion was wearing actual shoes, before turning his attention to the keyboard. Most pokecentres had a touchscreen, and this was no exception. But when John tapped the screen with a long, pointed purple claw, nothing happened. Cursing under his breath, he went back to the keyboard and mouse. He had to use both paws on the mouse to get the cursor to move with fine enough motions to click on the email icon, and then he was presented with a log-in page. Frowning, John tried to remember his details, or, more importantly, the layout of the keys he had to hit to type out his entire username. He closed his eyes, picturing the sequence of keys, before carefully tapping them into the keyboard. His password had already been practised earlier, so he typed that in much easier.  
  
The next screen popped up, and John breathed a sigh of relief as his details were accepted. His email was filled with some junk messages, offering him ‘pokemon enhancement pills’ that would make his pokemon battle ten times as strongly; an email from a wealthy Johto prince, and a ‘free I.V. check with any purchase made!’ for a pokemon merchandise warehouse.  
  
John instead moved the cursor down to a message from Professor Rian. It was the delivery details for the equipment. But most importantly of all, John could reply to the email and send a message directly to the professor.  
  
Squinting at the screen, John managed to get the ‘reply’ window to pop up, and then stared dumbly at the screen, uncertain what to write. ‘Help’ seemed short and easy, but hardly conveyed what he needed to get across.  
  
No, he would have to set up a meeting somewhere… at some time.  
  
Frowning, John hunched over the keyboard, squinting. The more he looked at the characters on the keys, the more they looked like a completely alien language. ‘I need to meet you at your laboratory tomorrow’ seemed like an impossible sequence of letters to convey.  
  
Pausing, John looked up at the map next to the PC, and at the labels. He knew the names of the towns. He could use the letters of the names to at least form a basic idea of what each letter needed to be. He quietly sounded out the words.  
  
‘Meet’. He needed the first letter of that for the ‘m’ sound, and so he scanned the map quickly, looking for something that started with ‘m’. Nearby towns and places weren’t much luck. There was a pokemon reserve named ‘Francis Lockier Institute For Furtherment of Wild Pokemon Research’ and he almost tried to count letters to get to an ‘m’ sound but something about it made him dizzy. Thankfully, ‘Mossdeep’ city far to the east started with ‘m’.  
  
He compared the letters of ‘Mossdeep’ to the keyboard until he found what he needed, and tapped it. And then he moved on to the next.  
  
Slowly, painstakingly, he managed to type out the start of a message.  
  
‘Meet me at ur lab 2m-’  
  
A strange feeling passed over John’s form, a sensation that his friends had called ‘someone walking on your grave’, and he looked over towards the counter to see the audino had clambered up on to it and was staring at him, little paws on her hips, squinting at him suspiciously.  
  
John’s heart started racing, and he turned towards her, turning his illusion as well.  
  
‘Do you speak sign language?’ he asked with slightly clumsy signing.  
  
The audino stared at him intently, blue eyes narrowing slowly, before she snorted and let her gaze wander elsewhere.  
  
John turned back to the keyboard, feeling a certain urgency to hurry before he was discovered.  
  
‘-orrow. v importnt. brng food!!!’  
  
After ten painstakingly slow minutes, John managed to finish crafting his masterpiece of digital communication, and then triumphantly hit ’send’.  
  
As the message went through, John got that sensation again.  
  
He turned, to find the audino staring at him once more.  
  
But so was Nurse Joy.  
  
John swallowed thickly, and signed ‘do you speak sign language?’ once more.  
  
_“Zoroark, the illusion pokemon_ ”  
  
The artificial, strange inflection of a pokedex’s automatic scanning function jolted John out of whatever sense of calm he had remaining.  
  
The trainer at the table had flipped open his pokedex, and was staring at him.  
  
So was the stantler.  
  
A young trainer walked in, flanked by a manky and a zubat. And _they_ started staring too.  
  
It took John four painful, slow seconds to realise that his illusion had dissipated.  
  
There was complete silence in the pokecentre except for the quiet whirr of the machine that healed pokemon, and the faint flapping of the zubat’s wings.  
  
“Uh hi guys nothing to see here!” John said aloud, knowing that the trainers would only hear gibberish. He tried to summon another illusion to cover himself, _anything_ , but nothing came to him.  
  
The trainer by the door reached into her pocket, and pulled out a pokeball.  
  
John sucked in a breath, feeling rather trapped. The PC was in the corner, with the main desk beside it. John would have to run through two trainers and their pokemon to get to the front door.  
  
The young girl trainer hadn’t made any motion to throw her ball, but there was a certain tension in the air.  
  
“Please, everyone, no pokemon battles in the pokecentre!” Nurse Joy tried to diffuse the situation, noting the tension in the air.  
  
“That’s a fucking _shiny_!” the male trainer at the table said, pointing at John.  
  
“It’s _mine_!” the young girl corrected, bringing her arm back and tossing the pokeball.  
  
John lurched into action, quickly picking up the keyboard from in front of the PC and then turning and smacking the pokeball away with it like he was hitting a baseball, sending the ball bouncing against the floor with such force that it snapped in half, sending both broken halves skidding across the floor. He wielded the keyboard like a weapon, with the now-snapped cord dangling forlornly from it. He raised it threateningly, and the male trainer slipped out of the booth to back away carefully, while the female trainer quickly unshouldered her backpack, reaching in to rummage around for a new ball.  
  
Not ready to take any chances, John turned and sprinted towards the far wall, leaping into the air and _exploding_ through the window in a spray of broken glass. He hit the ground and rolled, losing the keyboard, where it skidded away and hit a dumpster, with keys popping off and going every-which-way, while John regained his feet and his momentum and sprinted for the treeline.  
  
There were cries of surprise and alarm from behind him, but John afforded no time towards looking back, reaching the treeline as soon as possible and then darting into the underbrush, zig-zagging through the bushes. He made sure to put as many obstacles between him and the town as possible.  
  
It was a solid half a mile before John slowed down at all, his heart pounding. He lifted his arm to brush his cheek and eye, and smeared a strange red-purple liquid over his eye.  
  
And then his muzzle started to _burn_.  
  
There was a stripe of pain that made itself known, from immediately above his new lips, right to just below his eye. And it took him several seconds to understand that the strange liquid that was now dripping down his face was his _blood_. He must have cut himself when he went through the window.  
  
Grimacing and whimpering just faintly, John drew his hair around and dabbed at the cut blindly, hissing and clenching his teeth at the pain that shot through his muzzle. There was raw flesh there, and it _hurt_ to touch. Holding his muzzle in a paw on reflex, he turned, starting to circle back towards the hill where he had left Talia.  
  


* * *

  
  
With the sighting of a shiny zoroark in the area, the town’s trainers had all launched into action, and so the hills were alive with trainers kicking rocks and shaking bushes looking for illusory items in an attempt to find John.  
  
Some of them were close enough for John to hear the barks of annoyed mightyena sniffing through the underbrush looking for him, interspersed with angry cries of ‘I can still smell him!’ and ‘He has to be close master!’. It was singularly bizarre for John to hear both sides of pokemon and human communications, and more than a little bit unnerving. Especially since they were all hunting _him_.  
  
The steady trail of blood dripping from John’s muzzle was not helping, but he didn’t have a mirror and had no way to ascertain where exactly the blood was coming from without some way to see his muzzle. It was a _deep_ cut, and he knew it by how much it stung when the wind rushed over it.  
  
The hill where he had left Talia was rather sparse, and so there was only one trainer on it, vigorously shaking bushes and pushing on rocks while his disinterested flareon watched on with mild amusement.  
  
John lurked in the treeline, waiting for the trainer to leave, standing in an illusion he had conjured of a large sapling.  
  
“Psst,” Talia said from right behind him.  
  
John leapt in surprise, giving an audible yelp and swing around to face her. She was standing right behind him, paws behind her back and a silly little grin on her face.  
  
“It went well, I see,” she said, looking past him at the trainer on the hill.  
  
“How did you even find me?” John asked blankly, still holding his muzzle.  
  
“You are currently a tree that does not move and does not react to the shadows,” Talia said simply, stepping closer to him. She lifted one of her paws, lightly drawing his own paws away from his muzzle, and then wincing at the mark on his muzzle. “What did you do to yourself?”  
  
“I had to jump through a window,” John admitted, grimacing. He turned his muzzle and spat a mixture of both saliva and blood, from where the blood had been drooling against his lips.  
  
“Ah, glass, yes,” Talia said, wrinkling her nose and then leaning in to give his wound a lick.  
  
John tensed up and then snapped his head backwards, his eyes rolling slightly from the pain as he dropped to one knee, and then both knees, as a dizzy spell overtook him. He whimpered plaintively. “Oh f-fuck that hurts so much.”  
  
“You need a potion,” Talia pointed out simply.  
  
“I’m not a pokemon trainer. I _never_ had potions,” John said through gritted teeth, pushing himself back to his feet and leaning against a nearby tree for balance until the world stopped spinning.  
  
Talia pondered, and then made a motion over her shoulder, back towards town. “Then you must acquire one, from the ‘po-ke-mart’,”  
  
“Oh yeah, just waltz into town where all the trainers are and get a potion, that’s a sound plan,” John grumbled.  
  
Talia looked past him, towards the trees on the other side of the hill, and then perked a single ear at him. “None of the trainers are in town. They’re all out of town… looking for you.”  
  
John blinked, casting a glance towards the other treeline, and then sucking in a breath. “Okay, fine. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t have my wallet. I didn’t get any money while I was at home because I didn’t think I’d be going to any stores… not like this.”  
  
Talia looked him up and down, and then shrugged. “Either that, or you can brave the pokecentre again and hope Nurse Joy fixes you up.”  
  
John groaned faintly, pushing off the tree and then adjusting his mane, before snorting once. “Fine, fine. I’ll be back.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The town was rather quiet, except for a few travellers who hadn’t heard the news of the super-rare and nigh-unseen ‘shiny zoroark’ wandering around  
  
It was relatively easy for John to walk right in to the heart of the little town, carefully avoiding getting too close to anyone, and then slipping into the pokemart.  
  
A soft bell above the door rung as he entered the pokemart, and he immediately turned left, away from the counter. A long row of shelves stretched away in front of him, offering various merchandise.  
  
“Can I help you?” called the cashier, a middle-aged man with male pattern baldness in the later stages, with black hair surrounding a bald top.  
  
John paused, and then turned to the cashier, walking into full view and signing ‘do you speak sign language?’  
  
There was a pause, and then John’s heart leapt into his mouth as the cashier signed back. “What are you looking for?” he asked, adding specific signs to each word.  
  
John stared, stunned, before he made a vague, halfhearted attempt at signing something else and then pointed towards the other aisle, giving a thumbs-up. Swallowing thickly, he turned and strode rather quickly down the aisle, looking for the potions.  
  
A row of brightly-coloured ampoules with spray-tops on them rested at the end of the aisle. John instinctively took the red one, marked as just a ‘potion’, and tucked it in against his chest before quickly turning and making a beeline for the front door.  
  
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, grabbing him and pulling him back, turning him to face the cashier, who poked him _directly_ on his cut, aiming for his nose but missing due to the illusion. “Now if you need your pokemon healed there’s a pokecentre right… next… door… young… man….” his voice petered off as John shrunk backwards, whimpering and holding his muzzle, his illusion fading and the potion falling from his paws to clatter against the floor.  
  
“ _You_!” the cashier hissed. “You’re the one they’re all searching for!”  
  
John stared at the cashier, and his right paw balled into a fist.  
  
The bell ringing above the door sounded, and John instinctively ducked, throwing his illusion back up as a pair of trainers started perusing the store.  
  
The cashier stared down at the human illusion, his lips pursing, before he pointed towards the back of the store. “Enter the store room and wait for me.”  
  
John winced backwards, shaking his head.  
  
“I’ll tell those trainers that you’re here and you can go back to running if you’d prefer?”  
  
John slumped, but nodded. The cashier released him, and he slowly plodded behind the counter, entering the room behind it. It was some kind of store room, with boxes stacked high, and a computer on a desk as well as some paperwork. The only door leading out was padlocked with a heavy chain.  
  
The two trainers purchased something, and the cashier bid them farewell, before John heard his footsteps move to the front door, and then return. The door opened, and the cashier stared down at his human illusion, eyes narrowing. “The… illusion, get rid of it.”  
  
John pursed his lips, but did as ordered. He felt somehow small without his illusion on, even though he was a solid foot taller as a zoroark than he was as a human. A slow trickle of blood dripped off his chin, splattering on the floor.  
  
A gentle hand turned John’s muzzle to the side, inspecting his cut. “I thought so,” the cashier stated.  
  
Without another word, the cashier went back to the counter, rummaging around under it and coming back a few moments later. He placed a shiny red pokeball on the table, which made John instinctively take a step backwards. But then he placed a first-aid kit next to it, popping the two clasps on the front and then reaching inside, digging out some ampouls of liquid and cotton swabs.  
  
“C’mere,” he stated.  
  
John flattened his ears, but did as asked, stepping closer.  
  
“Now, brace yourself, this isn’t going to be pleasant,” the cashier said, picking up a cotton ball with a pair of forceps and beginning to gently scrape John’s cut with it. Lightning bolts of pain radiated through John’s muzzle, and he whimpered, but did his best not to jerk his head back.  
  
A gentle wash was applied after that, with cool liquid, and the cashier leaned in to check the cut. “My wife was a nurse, retired now, of course, but I picked up a few things from her.”  
  
John grit his teeth, but allowed his head to be turned and his injury inspected.  
  
“Mind you, I got nothing on Nurse Joy, but I can get by,” the cashier added, opened up a box and producing a bright-pink vial of liquid with a spray top. “This here is what you want, an ultra potion. That little red bottle you picked up would barely touch a wound like this.” Without any further warning, the cashier sprayed the potion directly onto John’s wound.  
  
John winced backwards, his eyes rolling and claws digging into the floor as burning pain seared across his muzzle for a moment, throbbing angrily. But with each potent throb of pain, the sensation lessened, gradually growing less intense, until vanishing altogether.  
  
“You’re going to have a scar,” the cashier said matter-of-factly. “No getting around that. Try not to go leaping through any more windows, yeah?”  
  
John nodded dumbly, touching at his muzzle. He felt around the bloody fur, until he found the long stripe of a healed wound. It was still quite hot to the touch, and soft, with a very unpleasant texture, like a freshly-sealed wound.  
  
“Now,” the cashier said, picking up the pokeball.  
  
John took another step backwards.  
  
“It’s up to you if you wanna go in here,” the cashier said, offering the pokeball. “I won’t use you in battles. Might get you to carry some boxes around the store, but other than that, I can guarantee a more comfortable life than any of what these youngsters are planning for you. Up to you.”  
  
John shook his head slowly.  
  
“Worth a try, I guess,” the cashier said, shrugging and tossing the pokeball over his shoulder carelessly. It bounced on the desk, rolling and then dropping onto the floor. He reached down into the box from earlier, producing another ultra potion. “Apply this to the wound if it re-opens. The sooner, the better. And next time, I’m making you pay for these.”  
  
John hesitantly reached out, taking the potion from the cashier. As he turned to leave, the cashier reached out a hand suddenly for his mane, and John flinched.  
  
The cashier chuckled, ruffling his mane affectionately. “Don’t be a stranger.”  
  


* * *

  
  
John took longer to get out of town than getting in, as several trainers were returning from their fruitless search. He cradled the ultra potion against his chest as he walked, trying his best to project confidence in his motions, so as not to be questioned by trainers walking back to town.  
  
Once he was safely outside of the town limits, John leaned up against a tree, threw up his illusion, and waited.  
  
“Success?” Talia asked, stepping into his illusion with a flourish.  
  
“I got a potion,” John said, holding out the pink bottle and shaking it, letting the liquids within audibly slosh.  
  
“I see you did not bother improving your illusion,” Talia stated, smiling at him innocently.  
  
John narrowed his eyes at her slowly. “Well I kinda figured if I made it too good you wouldn’t be able to find me.”  
  
“I could find you anywhere,” Talia said confidently, stepping closer to him. She turned his muzzle carefully to the side, and then wrinkled her nose. “You are all bloody. Come, we will get you cleaned up.”  
  
“Can’t we just sit down and rest?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia shook her head. “No. Come.”  
  


* * *

  
  
John followed Talia through the woods, and soon they came back upon the river. John knew it was the same river that ran alongside the laboratory, because he could _smell_ that it was the same one.  
  
Talia led him further upstream though, through a long, twisting path up over a hill until she could pick her way down a slope that seemed familiar to her, to where the water crashed over some rapids before pouring off the side of a rise as a relatively gentle waterfall.  
  
“It is later in the day, the magikarp will not be falling down the waterfall now,” Talia stated, lifting her head and sniffing. Deciding that the area was clear enough, she slid down the slope and landed on a rock, before stepping in the flowing water and heading for the rocks at the base of the waterfall.  
  
John was much less confident in his movements, stepping down carefully onto the rocks, his new claws digging into them and scoring the moss-covered surfaces as he carefully picked his way towards her.  
  
“Come!” Talia called over the rush of the waterfall, rising up to her full height and then stepping under the waterfall, her long mane immediately getting slicked down with water and seeming to lose much of its volume, instead hugging against her back, all the way down to her knees.  
  
Reluctantly, John followed after her, keeping a firm claw-hold on the rocks with his feet so he couldn’t slip, until he could push his head under the waterfall. Immediately, he was drenched, his fur flattening down against his body and his long mane slicking down against his body, but also getting _heavier_. He swayed slightly with the radical shift in balance, and then thudded down hard on his rump with all of the extra weight of the water suddenly tugging on his mane. He winced slightly, reaching a paw back to rub his rump, and then to settle his balance so he wasn’t swept away across the smooth rocks by the flow of water.  
  
“Clumsy,” Talia said with a faint smirk, perching herself in front of him, leaning down until they were almost nose-to-nose. One of her paws dug into the rock for balance, with the other lifted to gently turn his face to the side. She lightly brushed the paw along his muzzle where the cut had been, smoothing away some of the dried blood. “You will have a scar. Your fur will not be long enough to cover it entirely,” she stated matter-of-factly.  
  
John grumbled slightly, squinting into the mist of water the falls were throwing up. “Yeah, the cashier back at the shop said I’d have a scar. But at least it doesn’t hurt any more.”  
  
“You are lucky,” Talia said simply. “A wound such as this would not heal nearly as well in the wild without potions. You are lucky that many females like scars.”  
  
John snuffed a laugh at that, peering up at her for a long. “Do you?”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow at him, and then tapped his nose with a clawtip chidingly. “I find it more attractive that a prospective partner would not put themselves in a position to acquire such scars.”  
  
“Well, I probably won’t have the scar when I go back,” John responded simply. “I didn’t carry over any of my scars from…. Uh. You know. Myself. Previously. Human-me.”  
  
Talia tilted his head slightly to the side with a press of her hand, and then brushed some of his fur down, trying to cover up the freshly-healed wound. “Go back? Why are you so determined to return?”  
  
John blinked once, giving her a long stare. “Because…”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow.  
  
“Well, I’m a human,” John added lamely.  
  
Talia reached down to grasp one of his paws, lifting it up so it was between them. “You look like a zoroark to me,” she stated, inspecting his paw carefully. “No fingers. No palm.”  
  
“You know what I mean,” John responded, pursing his lips. “I wasn’t _born_ a zoroark.”  
  
Talia held his gaze, and then gave a flicker of a smirk. “This is something we have in common.”  
  
“ _You know what I mean_!” John repeated, rolling his eyes. “You were born a zorua and then evolved into a zoroark. I was born a human and then…”  
  
“Evolved in to a zoroark?” Talia pointed out, peering at him intently.  
  
John frowned, chewing on his lip, before he winced slightly at how sharp his own teeth were and then stopped. “Well, maybe? But it was hardly natural.”  
  
“You are no more unnatural than a pokemon that uses a stone to evolve,” Talia pointed out, looking up to the falls as she pondered. “Steeeelix. And… Scyther can evolve. Both require human intervention to evolve.”  
  
“Well, yes, but this is hardly _normal_ ,” John said, gesturing to himself.  
  
Talia gave him a long stare. “And steelix and scyther-evolved are more normal?”  
  
John heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe when you put it that way. But I’m not a pokemon. I didn’t start out as a pokemon!”  
  
“You are not a pokemon. That is like me saying ‘I am not a human’,” Talia pointed out matter-of-factly.  
  
John stared at her for a long moment. “Yes, that is _exactly_ the same. Because you’re not.”  
  
“You do not understand,” Talia extrapolated. “‘Pokemon’ just means ‘not human’. It is a word that humans use to describe _all_ things that are not them. It would be the same as I saying that a steelix is ‘not-zoroark’.”  
  
“I…” John trailed off, frowning. “Okay, so I’ll concede that. But as a human I’m also not a… _not_ -human. It would be like a…” he frowned, trying to think of a proper example. “Like an absol evolving into something else entirely. Like a rattata.”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow. “And if you gave an absol the choice, they might just choose to become a ratatta. Choose to _stay_ a ratatta.”  
  
John grimaced slightly, staring down at his paws for a long moment, flexing his claws. “Are you asking me if I want to stay a pokemon?”  
  
Talia gave him a long stare and then poked his chest with a clawtip. “I am merely saying that maybe you should ask _yourself_ that, before you go rushing back.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I want to go home,” John declared, burying his face in his arms, having to adjust his new arms into a strange position to accommodate his new much longer muzzle.  
  
Talia looked up from where she was sitting in her little home, one of her ears perking. “I will not stop you.”  
  
“What is this place, anyhow? This isn’t even a home. It’s just a… hollow,” John observed, looking around. “You don’t even have a proper place to sleep.”  
  
“I lost my home,” Talia stated simply.  
  
John frowned, one of his own ears perking. “So you just moved out here to this… hollow?”  
  
Talia nodded once. “It is hidden. And easy to replace should I need to move.”  
  
“That’s… kinda bleak, to be honest,” John responded. “You don’t want to look for a proper home somewhere?”  
  
“I was doing such, when I came across you,” Talia said with a wry smile.  
  
“Oh… I uh… sorry,” John said sheepishly.  
  
Talia waved a paw dismissively. “We do not choose our circumstances. Wherever I should choose to leave to shall still be there when I find it.”  
  
“Do you want… to come back to my place for a while?” John asked carefully.  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow. “Human homes are not unappealing, but would you be able to conduct an illusion appropriate enough to conceal your true nature?”  
  
“I... “ John frowned, taking a moment to parse her words. “I think so? My neighbors kind of keep to themselves.”  
  
Talia frowned, watching him carefully, before shrugging her shoulders. “Very well, I will come.”  
  


* * *

  
  
After a rather halting trip wandering through town near dusk, where John and Talia stopped near constantly to hide as a pair of bushes or a newspaper dispenser until a crowd has passed, they finally reached his apartment.  
  
John retrieved his spare key, and inserted it clumsily in the door. A letter was on the floor, slipped under his door, with an icon on it from the bank. His monthly statement. After failing to pick it up with his claws, he kicked it into the lounge room where it disappeared under his couch.  
  
Talia crawled up onto the couch, folding her large frame down to try and get comfortable, lifting her huge mane and throwing it over the back. “This is nicer than my grass bed.”  
  
John stared dubiously at his single-seat sofa, and then carefully turned and tried his best to fold himself into a seated position. His new body was entirely strange and his sofa was entirely not made to support this strange form. Talia watched him, almost seeming to smirk.  
  
“So… why are you living in a cave like that all alone?” John asked, lifting a leg up to rest over the arm of the chair in an attempt to get comfortable.  
  
“My tribe was wiped out,” Talia said matter-of-factly.  
  
John blinked, his ears flattening back. “Wiped out? By what? Like a natural disaster? If that’s not too rude to ask?”  
  
“A natural disaster of sorts,” Talia said, frowning and staring at her reflection in the dark television screen for a moment.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John said unhelpfully, rolling to another position to try and get more comfortable, largely failing. “May I ask what exactly?”  
  
“Trainers,” Talia said simply. “They came and caught my tribe, one by one.”  
  
John frowned, scratching his chin with a claw. “That… I don’t know what to say about that.”  
  
“You would not,” Talia stated. “You are… were a human. Humans are not in the same group as pokemon. You are not taken from your homes and tribes without warning.”  
  
“Well that’s certainly true,” John said glumly, before rising to his paws with a grumble. “I’m sorry that happened to your friends.”  
  
“They are… probably in a better place,” Talia said simply, picking up his remote and peering at it curiously before putting it back down. “It does not do to dwell on the past. We should look to the future.”  
  
John frowned slightly to himself and then nodded, reaching a paw behind himself to pull his huge mane to the front and stroke it thoughtfully. “You’re right. I have to communicate with Rian tomorrow… somehow. Ugh. It’s going to take forever. But I have to make him understand what happened.”  
  
“Indeed, communication with humans is difficult,” Talia said bluntly.  
  
John grumbled, and then rose to his paws, stalking towards the kitchen and throwing open cupboards. There wasn’t much food laying around, as he usually went out to eat or ordered something in. There were dry cup-noodles he could have tried to fix up, but the idea of filling and boiling the kettle or working the microwave with his new paws was so frustrating to him as a concept that he didn’t even want to consider it.  
  
An old, probably-stale packet of biscuits caught his eye, and he pulled them out, holding them delicately in his large claws. He turned around to show Talia, but she had already crawled off the couch and was somewhere else in the apartment.  
  
“Talia?” John called.  
  
“I am examining your nest,” Talia called back from the next room over.  
  
John ambled around the corner, poking his nose into his own room and then coming up short, his heart skipping a beat at the sight that greeted him.  
  
Talia was mid-crawl on to his bed, lifting her knee up onto it and then dropping down onto all fours, reaching for one of his pillows to pull it close to her chest as she dropped gracefully down into a curl, covering more than two-thirds of his bed in her huge mane and large body. But the thing that most caught his attention was the fact that she was making _zero_ effort to cover herself. With her sprawled out on his bed like that, soft zoroark pussy was clearly on display, and with one of her legs drawn up slightly to be comfortable against his pillow, she was spread just enough that he could see a glimpse of pink flesh hidden amongst the soft, dark-furred outer lips.  
  
“This nest is acceptable,” Talia said, curling slightly to stare at him, before one of her large ears perked up.  
  
It was only a second or two later that John realised that he was _staring_ and that he had dropped his packet of biscuits at some point.  
  
Talia watched him, arching an eyebrow, while her upper paw slipped down over her own thighs to artfully cover herself up. She smiled at him innocently, head canting slightly to the side. “You may not be a zoroark… but you act like one. You stare like one.”  
  
John swallowed thickly, and then gave a slightly nervous laugh. “Yeah well you walking around without clothes on sure doesn’t help.”  
  
“Zoroark are not like humans… simple coverings do not bother us. Seeing me without illusions… that is like seeing a human without clothes on. So all of this is without importance.” As she spoke, she grasped her rump and thigh with her paw, and squeezed slightly, lifting the weight of her rump up enough that pliable flesh parted and gave him a rather clear view of her deliberately-spread nethers, with glistening dark-pink flesh clearly on display for a heartstopping moment before she relaxed her paw again. Even then, without her paw in the way, Talia was completely exposed, leaving nothing to the imagination.  
  
“I uh… I yeah… that’s… something…” John stammered, blinking once or twice and trying his very best not to stare at her.  
  
“There is at least one part of you that does not wish to return to human-kind so readily,” Talia stated, her gaze drifting downwards significantly.  
  
John followed her stare, and realised belatedly that the first inch of that alien purple cock was visible, spilling out of his new heavily-tense sheath. “O-oh no fuck,” he cursed, placing both paws over himself, ears flattening back fully.  
  
Talia giggled, watching him with a wry stare. “It is only natural. I would take it as an insult to my attractiveness were this pose _not_ to arouse you.”  
  
“Maybe for a _pokemon_ ,” John muttered, glancing at her and then quickly looking away, lest the site of her worsen his ‘condition’.  
  
“You forget, you _are_ a pokemon now,” Talia said simply.  
  
John flattened his ears back, and then turned, awkwardly waddling towards the door. “I need to have a shower.”  
  
“You need to stop,” Talia stated, rising to her paws and prowling across the bed towards him. She slipped smoothly down onto the floor, and then rose to her impressive height, advancing at him.  
  
John was momentarily frozen, wanting to retreat to the safety of the bathroom, but something in her tone stopped him. He barely even flinched as she wrapped her large arms around him from behind, resting her heavy jaw on his shoulder, smirking at him from inches away. “You are more zoroark than you know. You followed my orders without question.”  
  
“I don’t… is that… normal?” John asked, slightly bewildered.  
  
“Zoroark males are very common,” Talia stated simply, pushing her nose into the side of his neck and inhaling his scent. Her paws roamed over his chest and shoulders, exploring the shape of his body. “In the wild, there are four males for every female.”  
  
John frowned at the explanation, not quite understanding where she was going with it, but unable to help but lean back against her large frame. “So… males fight each other for females?”  
  
Talia gave a dark chuckle, red eyes narrowing at him intently. “Do I seem to you as though I am one that would allow myself to be fought over like some weak grass-type?”  
  
A slightly nervous laugh left him, and John shook his head. “Actually, no.”  
  
“In the wild, females are queen. Our word is law. Our males are subservient. Those who serve us best are rewarded,” Talia explained. She drew back for a moment, only to slither up under his mane, pressing even closer now, the entire length of her body pressed against his back. John was suddenly aware of how _strong_ she was. Under her soft fur, there was immense power in that large frame. Powerful paws slipped in between the crook of his own arms, and then she gripped his paws and pulled them apart forcibly, leaving him no choice but to relinquish his hiding grasp on his swollen sheath and those first couple inches of purple flesh poking free.  
  
“That’s uh… different,” John admitted, giving a slightly nervous laugh, looking sideways at Talia, who had leaned forwards to look down past his shoulder and stare at those first inches of his cock. “Mnnf… like what you see?”  
  
Talia tilted to look at him, almost leering at him, licking the edges of her lips innocently. “You seek my approval?”  
  
John shook his head. “No, just you were staring a heap is all,” he said, giving another slightly nervous laugh.  
  
Talia narrowed her eyes at him, and then pressed her paw down between his thighs, giving a slow stroke of her ‘palm’ over his exposed flesh, and then reaching further down to heft his balls delicately with her claws. John almost bit his tongue, but recovered at the last second, sucking in a breath, his hips giving a slow little grind.  
  
“Would you allow a pokemon to do this to you as a human?” Talia asked simply.  
  
John shook his head immediately. “What, no, that’s wrong…”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow, an ear perking up at him. “And yet you are not stopping me now. Why not?”  
  
“I don’t…” John groaned, his hips giving a slow stirring grind into the touch of her paw. Talia adjusted her grasp, sliding her claws up to his cock and giving a slow stroke over it, coaxing it to swell up. Another eager inch of it slid free, and John grit his teeth slightly. “B-because I might as well enjoy it while I’m here,” he rationalised with a firm nod.  
  
“So it is the human in you enjoying this?” Talia asked, smiling at him wickedly, her other paw joining the first, both of them roaming over his growing cock, coaxing out the rapidly-stiffening purple length of flesh, until it was hard and throbbing in the air, fat knot heavy and thick at the base.  
  
A slow dribble of precum spilled from the tip of John’s new cock, and Talia reached her paws up, collecting it and then smearing it along the length of purple flesh, making it shiny with his own liquid.  
  
“I could be any human you desire,” Talia whispered in his ear, trailing her tongue along the side of it and then giving it a little nip and tug. “Decide which human you wish to mate with.”  
  
“I… what?” John asked, starting to pant softly, leaning back against Talia’s large frame, his ears flattening back heavily and hips rolling as she grasped around his cock, starting to firmly stroke from the knot to the tip in long, smooth strokes.  
  
“Choose,” Talia goaded, smirking mischievously. “Choose a human for me to take the guise of. You could bed any human female you wish.”  
  
“You’re kind of putting me on the spot here,” John grumbled breathlessly, looking sideways at the zoroark and trying to ignore the way her strokes made his cock throb and jerk. He glanced down again, and then drew in a breath of surprise. Nurse Joy was sucking his cock.  
  
Wearing her nurse’s uniform, including the little hat, Nurse Joy was bobbing on his cock, eagerly suckling as she moved.  
  
“That is not getting much of a reaction,” Talia mused from next to him, giving a thoughtful hum. The illusion disappeared, and he became aware of her paw still stroking him in those long, lazy motions, making him throb and twitch but not bringing him any closer to orgasm.  
  
There was a moment of silence broken only by John’s panting and the soft sounds of Talia’s moving paw, before another human girl appeared, kneeling in front of him, eagerly bobbing on his cock. This one John didn’t even know the name of, she was a barista who occasionally ran a coffee stall at the local museum.  
  
Talia watched him intently, her ears perking up and eyes narrowing mischievously. “Still nothing?”  
  
“I’m just not that into those girls,” John said with a shake of his head, his ‘toe’ claws digging into the carpet with an audible noise, sinking through the material.  
  
“How about…” Talia purred, sliding down from behind him. He almost fell backwards, having to steady himself on the wall, eyes widening as Talia moved to kneel in front of him, slowly stroking his cock with one of her paws, pointing it directly at her nose.  
  
John’s eyes widened, and his heart started to race, his toeclaws digging further into the carpet until they hit the underlying wood.  
  
A low purr left Talia’s throat as she leaned forwards, and she carefully extended her tongue, drawing it up the underside of his cock in a slow, careful lash, flicking it off his tip and sampling the taste of his precum, smirking up at him all the while. His cock _throbbed_ wantonly, and he felt his knot slightly bulge, alien sensations coursing through him from his very new equipment.  
  
“Now _that_ got much more of a reaction,” Talia said from right beside him.  
  
John blinked once, and the illusion faded, leaving him to realise that Talia had never moved. She was still languidly stroking him with her paw, from base to tip in those long, lazy strokes, though there was now a springiness to his cock; it was so _achingly_ stiff that it barely moved when she touched it.  
  
Talia’s paw lifted, and she lightly grasped over the end of his quivering cock, the ‘palm’ of her paw giving slow circular motions that made John’s hips automatically lift and grind into the touch urgently. “If you order me,” she purred in his ear, dragging a light lick of her wicked tongue against the edge of it. “I will kneel in front of you and suckle until you cum in my mouth.”  
  
John swallowed heavily past the lump in his throat, hearing the floor under him crackle slightly as his claws slid through the wood under the carpet, and he tried his best to still the incessant grinding of his hips, chest heaving. “I… Mnnnf…”  
  
“Can you do it?” Talia asked sweetly, nuzzling against the base of his ear. “The human in you could. But I suspect the pokemon in you is stronger, whether you believe it or not. Your body and your lips do not lie.”  
  
“No, I…” John tried to protest, his paws gripping clumsily and futilely at her wrists.  
  
“Which of you is stronger?” Talia mused, resting her chin on his shoulder to watch as she started to work him with both paws, one of them squeezing down around his knot while the other polished his tip in repeated motions. “The human-John or the zoroark-John?  
  
John was quite certain that his human cock had _never_ been this hard. It felt like he could have used it as an improvised weapon in a dark alley if he wanted. It _strained_ and _jerked_ with her motions, and her squeezing around his knot had it tightening and hardening like cooling metal solidifying.  
  
“Order me, if you can,” Talia cajoled, teasing. Her paws squeezed down around his knot harder, and she gripped him tight in her other paw, starting to swiftly stroke him. A straining urgency built in the pit of John’s stomach, and it was all he could do not to wildly hump his hips into her grasp.  
  
His muzzle quivered, and he bit his tongue, half by accident and half by frustration. His cock was basically _spurting_ precum now, a visible, steady stream of it drooling from his pointed tip to splash down onto the carpet, making dark stains in the material.  
  
Talia moved again, sliding down around his hip and then moving to kneel in front of him, that vulpine muzzle pulled up into a wicked grin as she leaned close to his quivering cock, holding her tongue out for his next dribble of precum to splash directly across it.  
  
“You could grab my ears,” Talia suggested, red eyes staring up into his own as she swirled her tongue lazily over her lips. “Stuff it in my muzzle…” she added, giving his knot a little more firm of a squeeze.  
  
“Nnnf… but…” John whimpered, staring down at her with wide, cloudy eyes. He _needed_ to cum, worse than he’d ever felt in his life.  
  
“Or…” Talia’s wicked grin widened, and she stared up at him intently, trailing the back of a red claw lazily up the length of the underside of his straining cock. “You could beg me, as is proper for a _zoroark_.”  
  
John shuddered, his claws dug so deep into the floor now that his claws didn’t even retract from it properly. He stared down at Talia, watching her extend her tongue again to teasingly let a droplet of his precum splash over it, and the sight turned him on so much that his cock visibly tensed and jerked above her nose. He bit his tongue, ears flattening back heavily. “ _P-please_ …” he whined plaintively.  
  
Talia’s smirk widened, and she stared up at him intently. “See, you are more zoroark than you know.”  
  
John stared down at her, his hips grinding and rolling as her other paw came up to grip his knot. But she just stared at him, smiling smugly. He opened his mouth to beg further, but then Talia leaned forwards, sinking his tip into her mouth.  
  
Immediately, the soft, agile zoroark tongue swirled down around the dished tip of his new purple cock, and he felt a wild _throb_ down the length of his urgently-twitching flesh, the flesh tightening and hardening like diamond. His knees weakened slightly, and some small part of his mind was amazed that he didn’t just cum immediately. His stomach lurched, and he had to fight down the urge to hump, feeling his knot thicken and _grow_ in the grasp of Talia’s paws.  
  
Talia stared up at him, holding his gaze, red eyes meeting his golden gaze unblinkingly, even as she feathered his sensitive tip with agile flurries of firm licks. Precum drooled from his tip constantly, and her licks smeared it around, the clear liquid trailing over her tongue with each swipe and swirl, and he couldn’t help but stare at her, transfixed.  
  
John’s new cock quivered wildly, and his hips jerked and ground towards her motions in helpless reflex, his eyes narrowing to slits, resisting the urge to close, torn between being overwhelmed by her tongue and watching her work.  
  
Smirking, Talia leaned forwards further, capturing the first few inches of him and then starting to nurse on him hungrily. John saw stars for just a moment, and his hips almost lunged forwards on instanct. He managed to turn his movement into a heated grind instead of a hump, and Talia rewarded his eagerness by sinking another couple inches further down his cock, staring up at him as she started to suckle firml.  
  
Johns eyes rolled back, and his ears flattened, knees weakening further. It was getting hard to even stand upright with Talia nursing on his stiff, quivering cock. She turned her head to the side and gave a forwards bob, sinking even further down him, and he swore.  
  
A muffled giggle sounded around his cock, and then Talia adjusted her angle, pausing to draw back and give his tip another lazy lash of her tongue, before she set her shoulders and then dove down over him. Her long vulpine muzzle sank over his cock, and her paws squeezed around his knot intently, timing the warm clenches of his palms to coincide with the heavy throbs and twitches of his cock. And then, she started to bob her muzzle on him, setting immediately into a powerful, intent motion.  
  
Knees trembling and head spinning, John did his best to just stay upright, only able to watch Talia with one eye now. His cock was rock-hard, quivering and flexing with her motions, and his knot was bulging against her palms. Each time she squeezed him, he felt his resistance slipping further, and her firm bobbing rhythm was destroying any ability he had to think coherently. He had received head before, from his previous girlfriend. But a human girl had some variation to their rhythm. They stopped, paused to catch their breath, changed the depth of their motions, or turned their head or something like that.  
  
But Talia was _relentless_ , almost mechanical in the intent motions of her head, drawing back until just the first few inches were in her mouth, and then cramming forwards until her nose almost touched his knot. And then she repeated it, at the same rhythm and tempo, with a swift, bobbing pace that was quickly destroying any chance he had of holding back.  
  
John hissed between clenched teeth, and his knees weakened further. He couldn’t help but lean forwards over Talia as she worked him over so intently, and each time her muzzle sank down over him, he felt the tension and _stiffness_ in his cock tightening and spiralling further out of control.  
  
Talia smirked up at him, red eyes glowing with wicked satisfaction a moment before she suddenly dove down and kissed her soft lips against the top of his knot, clenching him tighter with her paws on either side of that fat purple bulge.  
  
Immediately, John felt a spasm somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, and his entire cock clenched and jerked wildly. His entire form tensed, and he _snarled_ so ferociously that he actually startled himself with the noise, quickly lost to a white-hot haze of pleasure as his first ever orgasm as a zoroark washed over him.  
  
His cock was so stiff it _ached_ , and he felt the first heavy rushes of cum barrelling up the length of it, like water inflating a fireman’s hose. And then, it hit the end of his cock and fired from his tip in a powerful, urgent volley!  
  
Talia had drawn back, obviously knowing what was coming, and was only holding the first few inches of him in her mouth, leaving a gap of empty air between her tongue, the roof of her mouth, and the back of her throat. But John was so pent-up and urgent that his first powerful volley of zoroark spunk filled the empty space to utter capacity in a single prolonged rush! Talia’s eyes widened for an instant, and she _swallowed_ powerfully, trying to clear her muzzle before the second urgent spurt of John’s spunk overwhelmed her.  
  
Thick white cum spilled from either side of her muzzle, drooling messily down either side of her chin, splashing out over her cheeks as she tried to swallow faster and harder, her eyes wide and paw squeezing down around his knot on reflex as her muzzle was _flooded_ with zoroark spunk. She had to pull back, muzzle opening wide, a trail of thick, gooey cum splashing down from the end of her muzzle while his next spurts splashed over her face and ears, falling in heavy streams right over her mane!  
  
Talia nuzzled at the spurting cock as she swallowed urgently, smearing his mess down one side of her muzzle, before she managed to gather herself enough to stuff her muzzle back over him. Her tongue ground over his underside, and John hissed faintly as she nursed on him, his remaining spurts splashing heavily up over the roof of her mouth only for her to hungrily swallow them down.  
  
After what could have been only a minute or an hour, John shuddered and sagged. He almost fell forwards, but his claws were dug so deep into the wood under the carpet that he couldn’t. He swayed slightly, and instead fell heavily onto his butt, head spinning wildly.  
  
“Nnnnf h-holy f-fuck….”John mumbled helplessly, his trapped claws the only thing keeping him from falling back and passing out. “Was that… did that… was it real?” he asked blankly. “Or was that another illusion?”  
  
Talia knelt in front of him, smirking slightly. She peered at him for a long moment, muzzle _dripping_ with heavy ropes of zoroark spunk, before she idly opened her mouth and extended her tongue, letting him see the pool of his spunk drooling across every surface within. John swallowed heavily, blood rushing in his ears as he stared at her, feeling his mouth go dry. There was no reason for such a sight to turn him on as much as it did. Especially not since he had literally just orgasmed seconds previously.  
  
Talia closed her muzzle, and swallowed audibly, and John felt his used cock twitch and quiver in impotent interest.  
  
“I assure you, that was quite real,” Talia said with a happy hum. She licked the edges of her muzzle lightly. “I feel as though I am in need of a bath.”  
  
“Oh... uh... yeah - right, shower,” John squeaked, jerking his head towards the back room. “You mnf… look like you need one too,” he managed to stammer out. Drooling lines of his zoroark-spunk were still dripping slowly through her fur, trailing down her form.  
  
Talia stood and turned, humming faintly as she ambled towards his shower, as though she wasn’t wearing a crisscrossing mask of his cum.  
  
John swallowed heavily, and it took him several long seconds to realise that he needed to avail himself of the shower as well; some of the splatter from Talia’s muzzle was dripping and wet against the fur of his knees and thighs, and now that his heart wasn’t violently throbbing in his throat, he was becoming increasingly aware of the sticky feeling.  
  
John’s bathroom had a shower/bath combination, with raised sides so that he could sit and soak or just shower if he was in a hurry. By the time John made his way down the hallway, Talia had already found the knobs for the water and turned it to the hottest setting, sending hot water spraying down against the cold tiles, and kicking up steam immediately. John watched from the doorway as she ducked in underneath the spray of water, and for a few moments, the hot water and steam hitting his own spunk redoubled the intensity of the scent, cloying and thick in his new nose.  
  
Talia glanced at him, red eyes glowing in the steam and she hummed softly, lifting her paws to slowly scrub her muzzle, and then her chest. She turned on the spot, arching lazily, trailing her paws down her form as her water-heavy mane trailed off to the side, leaving her rump bare. She arched forwards just far enough, leaning forwards to reach her knees and thighs, that John could see a hazy crescent of zoroark pussy, plump and inviting.  
  
John’s eyes almost bulged, and he leaned against the doorway, trying to ignore the way Talia was cleaning herself. It was so very _sensual_ that it was impossible to conceive that it wasn’t deliberate.  
  
And then Talia bent over further, shooting John a look over her shoulder and poking her tongue out with a sly little smile, and he was convinced that she was deliberately trying to seduce him for some reason. “Are you going to join me?” she asked.  
  
“Oh y-yeah!” John said, stepping in to the room a little _too_ eagerly, and then immediately bringing himself up short, standing there awkwardly with his thighs and knees covered in his own cum backsplatter.  
  
“Come in to the water,” Talia said, rolling her eyes.  
  
John nodded robotically, and then stepped closer to the water, reaching a paw out to test. There was steam coming off it in billowing waves and so he knew that it should be too hot, but to his new zoroark body, it seemed pleasant. He was still acutely aware of the temperature of the water, but it just didn’t hurt.  
  
Talia watched him intently, and then gave a toothy vulpine smile as John finally stepped under the water. With a flick of her mane, she turned, facing him properly, and then leaned back against the wall, the claws of one of her feet digging in to the floor of the shower as she lazily lifted the other and set it against the raised edge of the tub. Water was streaming out of the open shower door and splashing over the tiled floor, but John was far more focused on the attention-grabbing sight of zoroark pussy so perfectly presented to him. Even from his towering height, the obvious mound of Talia’s cunt was so tantalizing obvious.  
  
A sly grin spread across Talia’s muzzle as she watched him, and she arched her hips lazily, running one of her paws through her mane while the other trailed down her side. “Do you like what you see?”  
  
“F-fuck yes,” John murmured, managing to wrench his eyes away from her alluring display. “Why… why are you doing this?” he asked plaintively. “I’m not a zoroa-”  
  
Talia cut him off with a paw on his muzzle. “Because I like you, and you are very much a zoroark,” she purred, red eyes staring in to his own. One of her large paws lifted, and an ebony talon pointed down towards the floor of the shower. “Now get on your knees.”  
  
“What? Why?” John asked, even as he unthinkingly dropped down on his new knees in front of Talia, peering up at her with his nose level with her belly now.  
  
“Because it is customary for a zoroark to repay the favour,” Talia stated, red eyes narrowing down at him hungrily. She lifted one of her powerful legs, and hooked her knee over his shoulder, a strong paw pressing down on his muzzle until his nose basically bumped against her crotch!  
  
John winced at the momentary pain in his muzzle along the healing scar there, but almost immediately, that was forgotten. Talia’s powerful paw shifted back between his ears, and she pulled his muzzle against her tightly, pushing his nose directly against the soft flesh of her cunt. The water covered up most of any possible scent, but he could _feel_ how soft she was against his nose, and for a bare instant he thought he detected something that smelled of cinnamon and honey. Feeling his cheeks warming, he glanced up at Talia. She was staring down at him expectantly, and then made a ‘carry on’ motion with her free paw, while the paw between his ears gave an encouraging tug.  
  
Swallowing thickly around a curiously dry throat, John dragged his tongue upwards, feeling it come into contact with Talia’s delightfully soft outer lips and cause them to spread slightly under the pressure. It was very abstract to try and lick with his new tongue, and for the first few seconds he was too focused on the physical details of how to extend his tongue and _lick_ something before he totally realised what he was doing.  
  
Warmth rushed to his cheeks as he stared up the length of Talia’s sleek, powerful form to where she was watching with lustfully narrowed eyes as he went down on her, his gaze meeting her own.  
  
John paused there for a moment, his ears flattening back, taking a moment to swallow thickly, feeling splashes of water drooling from the sides of his new muzzle. He wasn’t quite certain how to deal with liquid with his new muzzle. His lips didn’t form enough of a seal when his jaws were parted to keep any liquid in. His own paws lifted, and he grasped Talia’s hips with them, pushing his nose in against the mound of her cunny eagerly. He could see all of her curves at this angle, from the rounded swell of her outer lips and that line of parted flesh with a glimmer of pink within.  
  
Talia clucked her tongue, and John realised that he had been staring for several long seconds, and he mentally shook himself, swallowing thickly and then leaning in to eagerly grind his tongue against her, swirling a long lick of his new, powerful tongue right from the base of her cunt all the way to where he assumed her clit was!  
  
Talia’s paw grasped at his mane weakly, and she gave a breathy exhalation, those powerful hips giving a quiver that caused a peculiar tingling in John’s groin. His purple cock was started to slowly peek out of hiding again, the end of his sheath opening up to allow the slow swelling of that distinctly canine cock. He didn’t even need to look to see it, he could feel the warm water of the shower starting to course over his emerging tip.  
  
A faint rumbling rose from his throat, and it took several long, long moments for him to realise that he was _purring_. He was legitimately _purring_. The thought surprised him so much that it stopped immediately, and he blinked stupidly up at her.  
  
“Lick!” Talia grumbled, grasping at his mane and urging him against her impatiently.  
  
John’s ears flattening back, and he paused a moment to debate inwardly on how best to comply with her demand, tilting his head down further and squinting into the spray of water that ran across his new longer muzzle, carefully exhaling through his nose to help keep it clear of water since it was more forward-facing now instead of angled downwards. And then he dragged another lick against Talia, more firm and powerful this time, grinding his tongue in an upwards motion against her. To his surprise, Talia’s outer lips readily parted for him and his new thinner, _much_ stronger tongue slipped right inside!  
  
A soft moan left Talia’s muzzle, and she leaned back against the shower wall happily, her paw grasping at John’s mane to urge him to lap at her harder, and he squinted and closed his eyes as the change in her position made the water splash directly down over his face.  
  
Hot, tight zoroark pussy gripped around John’s new tongue so tightly that he had to worm it back and forth slightly just to get it free. He tilted his muzzle, carefully judging angles so that he could press a long lick right along the length of her tight cunny, from the base, all the way to the top of her clit. Talia’s back arched with the lick, and her claws dug through his mane, almost grazing against the flesh beneath.  
  
John paused, nose pushed into Talia’s clit, so that the water coursed around his muzzle instead of across his nostrils, slowly extending his tongue to swirl in slow motions against her outer lips. She was markedly different to a human, with furred outer lips and a transition to smoother inner flesh that didn’t even have discernable ‘inner’ lips that completely confused John’s tongue. Working with what he knew from human girls was not going to work, it seemed, and so John had to learn as he went. His new tongue was much stronger than his human tongue, but also thinner and flatter, more like a ribbon than his previous tongue. He was almost certain that if he had a lollipop stick he would have been able to curl his tongue around it twice through muscle motion alone. His licks were stronger, but much narrower, much more focused, and as he dragged another lick against Talia’s entrance, his tongue slipped right inside her once more, spreading her and brushing against soft inner flesh. Talia’s hips angled towards him, and her paw grasped between his ears eagerly, and John pressed his muzzle more firmly against her, deliberately tilting his head upwards so he could grind his tongue past her resistance and spread her depths around it. He was _intensely_ interested in how much of his tongue he could actually get inside her.  
  
Once his tongue edged deeper within the zoroark, she got tighter and more constricting, and as he brushed against obviously sensitive spots within her, she _squeezed_ down around his tongue all the more urgently.  
  
“Lick!” Talia hissed down at him, grasping between his ears and pulling him tighter against her. John was vaguely confused by her command, as he thought that that was what he was _already_ doing, but Talia stared down at him and growled intently, correctly judging his blank stare. “ _Lick_! Like fur!”  
  
It took John a second or two to understand Talia’s instructions, but eventually he figured her meaning: to lick with repeated strokes, instead of trying to insert his tongue into her. Talia’s urgent grasp against the back of his head wasn’t helping, and he had to fight to eager grip and the roll of her hips to meet her demands, tilting his muzzle to get the right angle and dragging a lick against her in a long swirl. He was careful to make sure his tongue didn’t slip inside her, trying to lap with the middle of his tongue instead of the narrower tip, tracing along the line of her outer lips all the way to the very end of her delicious cunt, until his tongue flicked off the end of her flesh and met with the streams of water cascading down her form. Talia’s hips jerked with each of his motions, and her footclaws tapped against the shower floor when his tongue found the end of her soft cunt.  
  
John lifted his paws, carefully grasping at Talia’s hips, trying to hold them steady, while her carefully, every-so-gently maneuvred his new claws, trying his best to add a little pressure against her inner thighs. The edges of his claws were rounded, thankfully, but lacked the agility of actual fingers, and so he had to take several agonizing seconds to squeeze her hips and watch the effects of his clawtips before he managed to get the right angle and pressure to spread her. His new licks then caught right against Talia’s exposed flesh, dragging eagerly across softer pink flesh. Her back arched, and she spread her thighs for him further, huffing her pleasure and giving a soft little grind of her hips down against his muzzle. His new cock was growing from his sheath again, rapidly stiffening into eager hardness, and the rising lust in him spurred him on further.  
  
Talia growled urgently as John grasped tighter at her hip with one paw, and his other paw helped spread her, pressing on her inner thigh directly now, letting him angle his muzzle further up, and let his lick attain an angle that put more strength behind them. He had a good rhythm now, grinding the flat of his tongue right up the length of that soft zoroark cunt and then deliberately flicking the pointed end of his tongue right against her clit at the end with the occasional eager flurry that had the female arching and shuddering above him. With a heated growl, he hooked his paw around her thigh, and deliberately lifted it, forcing Talia to lay one thigh over his shoulder, so that he could grind his eager licks against her all the more hungrily, lapping at her with powerful strokes of his new, agile tongue.  
  
John could feel the shudders in her thigh, and could _see_ the ripples in the powerful muscles of her taut stomach, betraying how close she was to orgasm. He stared up at her, blinking into the spray of water cascading down over them both, watching her as she tilted her head back and _groaned_ to the ceiling. Her knees were weakening, and her grasp on his mane was growing tighter and more urgent, her hips pushing towards his muzzle in a predictable, eager rhythm.  
  
Feeling his heart thudding in his throat, John lapped at Talia’s delightful cunt a few more times, dragging his licks right out over the top of her flesh and deliberately laying a flurry of eagerly laps against her, until she was arched and quivering against him.  
  
And then, he pulled back completely.  
  
“What are you a-ahhh!”

Talia’s urgent question was cut short as John growled and rose to his feet, holding her tight and _stuffing_ his cock inside her in one smooth instinct-driven motion. He was unerringly accurate, his dished tip finding the furrow of her thoroughly-soaked cunt and guiding him inside perfectly so that a full two thirds of stiff purple zoroark cock _stuffed_ its way inside her.  
  
Talia _snarled_ and bit down on his shoulder, hard enough that her teeth found his flesh and drew blood, but John barely even noticed it with the sensation of tight, hot, wet zoroark flesh clenching around his tip. With his own snarl, he stuffed her up against the wall of the shower, straightening up fully and _lunging_ against her, feeling his tip burrowing inside her, spreading soft inner flesh apart and stabbing deep inside clenching zoroark cunt.  
  
John heaved against Talia, paws grasping her hips, holding her tight in place as he gave a few rough thrusts, driven purely by lustful instinct. She was so incredibly _tight_ around him, squeezing and caressing every last inch that he had managed to stuff inside her, and her grasping, squeezing coaxes around him made him throb all the harder and stiffer. He had intended to just give a few strokes to bright her directly to orgasm, but the concept was swiftly being ushered towards the bottom of his list of priorities under the mind-bending sensation of her squeezing around his stiffly-throbbing cock.  
  
“F-fuck!” John hissed against her neck, grasping at Talia’s hips and pressing her tight against the shower wall, _grinding_ his hips against her powerfully. He was so much stronger in this new form, and the urge to just _jackhammer_ Talia against the wall was only tempered by the odd angle they were at bending his stiff cock in an unpleasant way. One of them would get hurt if he tried that at this angle.  
  
Talia shuddered and huffed against his shoulder, her claws clicking against the hard shower floor, before she suddenly lifted one of her thighs, trying to help him get a better angle. She was _squeezing_ down around him so urgently now that it made him want to snarl, but the lifting of her thigh was something he couldn’t fail to take advantage of. His arm hooked up under her knee, and he took a half-step back, deliberately pulling her hips away from the wall. Talia released her jaws from his shoulder, and leant back against the wall, staring at him with eyes clouded with lust, and immediately, the taut, restrictive tightness around John’s new cock lessened, replaced by the reassuring tightness of Talia’s clenching cunt squeezing him from his tip all the way down to where her outer lips were clasped around his shaft. With an almost feral snarl, John _lunged_ forwards, pounding into her presented entrance, his new angle letting him get just as deep as he could want, and in a few short thrusts, his knot _crammed_ up against her outer lips, bulging the soft flesh around him and giving a slippery kiss of flesh over the top curve of it.  
  
Immediately, Taila was pushed over the edge of an orgasm, and she bit down on her own tongue, giving a resounding _growl_ of utter delight, eyes clenched closed and hips jerking in time with urgent, coaxing, milking ripples of her deliciously soft inner flesh around every last of his cock that he could get inside her. Every single one of John’s instincts was _demanding_ that he bury his knot inside her. The kiss of her outer lips against the top of his knot was like a bolt of lightning, and it made him throb so urgent and stiff inside her that the demand to stuff his knot inside her was all he could think about. But Talia’s orgasm had her so tight around him that his urgent, rough thrust just stuffed his knot up against her tight, constricting outer lips, spreading them a tiny fraction, but nowhere near enough to admit him entrance.  
  
With a snarl, John thrust against her again, and again, each time _slamming_ his knot against her to no avail, his hips pounding against her own and his tip being massages and coaxed maddeningly by her inner flesh, temping him to bury a knot inside her that he was physically incapable of inserting in her at that moment.  
  
Talia was slowly coming down from her orgasm, her eyes opening, cloudy and unfocused, staring at the ceiling before she managed to focus them on him, shuddering and biting her lip. John just grasped her knee and spread her thighs a little further, and then _pounded_ into her harder, his knot _slamming_ against her so hard that it sent a splash of displaced water spraying out in all directions.  
  
“J-John, calm down!” Talia hissed, digging her claws into his shoulder to try and catch his attention. “You will hurt us both!”  
  
John snarled, and pressed her against the wall all the more urgently, giving another couple of urgent, rough shoves against her before giving up, huffing and bumping his muzzle against her shoulder, chest heaving and low growls resonating in his throat as his frustrated cock _throbbed_ inside her urgently.  
  
“You are doing it wrong,” Talia said with a breathless chuckle, giving an affectionate brush of her paw against his mane.  
  
“What am I… what am I doing wrong?” John asked, almost urgently, grinding his hips against her to remind her of just how stiff and _needy_ his cock was inside her.  
  
“If you are trying to _breed me_ then you are trying too hard too soon!” Talia chided with a breathless giggle, bumping her nose against his own. “I very much doubt you would wish to breed me.”  
  
John’s ears flattened back, and he clenched his teeth, grinding his hips against her slowly. “No… no. I _definitely_ want to breed you,” he hissed, feeling her outer lips pressing down against the top of his knot. He couldn’t help but grind his hips up against her in slow, deliberate motions.  
  
Talia stared at him, looking into his eyes, holding his gaze for several long moments, giving a slow rock of her hips against him. “If you breed me, you will not go back to being a human,” she warned.  
  
John stared at her, confused by her obvious conviction. “What?”  
  
“I will not repeat myself,” Talia stated simply. “You have the instincts of a zoroark but the… _drive_ of a human. You do things a zoroark would not. I like it,” she purred, giving a slow rock of her hips against him in illustration.  
  
John clenched his teeth, and ground his hips against her in counterpoint, the paw on her hip grasping a little tighter, resisting the urge to just press her into the wall and _rut_ her.  
  
“No zoroark would do what you did… just… _take me_ without requesting permission,” Talia purred, staring up at him with lust-clouded red eyes. “I have decided I want you. But I want you to come to me of your own choice. And if you breed me, it will not be your choice.”  
  
John stared at Talia, his jaw set and his paw _squeezing_ at her hips in slow little grasps, feeling the water splashing down over his mane and dragging down his head with the weight of it. The urgent _throb_ of lust in his cock was being spurred on by every motion of Talia’s body tugging and clenching around him. He could feel an urgency rising in him, and it wasn’t going to be sated by her muzzle this time. “Would one of your zoroark do this?” he asked with a heated growl, sliding back until his achingly-stiff cock popped out of her. It _sprang_ up to an erect state, bobbing and quivering angrily between them as John grasped around Talia’s middle, deliberately turning her and pressing her chest-first into the wall.  
  
Talia giggled, and gave him a coy smile over her shoulder, carefully arranging her mane so it hung off her hip instead of over it, so that it wouldn’t obscure her rump. It was almost an _invitation_ , and John wasted no time in accepting it. He _pressed_ Talia up against the wall with a hungry growl, both paws grasping around her hips to hold her steady. The weight and heft of her hips felt so _perfect_ in his paws, and somehow, it made him throb even more urgently, and he couldn’t help a snarl of anticipation leaving his throat. It took a few moments to line himself up properly, an agony of anticipation where he had to fight every single urge he had to not just shove his hips against her until he was aligned properly. But the moment his dished tip found her outer lips and he felt her spreading around the point of his cock, he _lunged_ , burying himself in her with a rough, urgent stroke all the way until his engorged knot _slammed_ against her outer lips.  
  
Talia _arched_ against him, muzzle quivering as slick, heated insides clenched around him once more, and both of her paws lifted up, grasping around the base of the shower head for balance as she tried to take John’s full weight on her back, while his stiff cock _stabbing_ deep inside her made her knees quiver weakly.  
  
“ _This_ is my choice!” John hissed against her ear, grinding his hips against her own, his breath catching in his throat as he felt her outer lips spread that tiny fraction around his knot, letting him grind a few millimetres deeper inside her. It triggered something in him, and he growled urgently, drawing back and _stuffing_ himself inside her with a rough stroke, rocking her against the shower wall. “My choice is to cum insi-… to _breed_ you!” he hissed, punctuation his words with another urgent grind against her.  
  
Talia shuddered, one of her paws sliding down to roam over her own stomach as John’s cock drooled slick precum deep, deep inside her, her hips slowly, and carefully pushing back against him. “You wish to breed me?” she asked, her tone steady despite the stiff cock buried inside her and the knot insistently grinding against her outer lips.  
  
“Yes!” John hissed, wrapping his paws around her middle in lustful urgency, rocking against her in firm motions that slid him in and out of her only an inch or so.  
  
An uncertain whine left Talia’s muzzle, and her depths _squeezed_ around him in response to his enthusiastic response. “Are you certain?”  
  
“Just tell me how to fucking breed you!” John snarled, pressing the zoroark against the wall and _assaulting_ her with sudden urgent thrusts, rocking her back and forth powerfully with his motions while his heavy knot _slammed_ up against her outer lips over and over again. Each potent thud of his knot against her caused a little bit of a recoil, as Talia’s body was rocked upwards by the strength of his motions, and John just used that delicious rhythm to slide back and then _lunge_ forwards again, rutting her with rough urgency.  
  
“G-grind!” Talia hissed breathlessly, her hips jerking and tight insides squeezing and clenching around John’s thrusting cock with each of his rough thrusts. “At the end! You have to grind! If you just hit your knot on me it makes me tighten up and you will never get inside like that…”  
  
John was barely listening by that point, his every instinct telling him to _rut_ her, his knot swelling further and just making it even more difficult to get it inside her. But after a few more fruitless shoves of his hips against her, he decided to test her theory, just _once_. He slowed his hips, fighting against every last instinctual motion of his body to instead hold himself tight against her and _grind_ with all the weight and power of his new body, cramming his knot up against her outer lips in an urgent, wild press.  
  
Talia’s body resisted him, clenching and squeezing around him in hot, coaxing ripples that just made it all the harder for him to resist returning to rutting her. John’s resolve was failing, and after a few more grinds against her, he was almost at the point of giving up and just _rutting_ her again, when her resistance faltered and he slipped another half-inch inside her, her outer lips bulging out and spreading fully around the first third of his fat, throbbing knot.  
  
John _crammed_ Talia up against the wall with a feral snarl, rocking against her roughly, instinctually trying to just force his knot inside her, putting every last scrap of strength he had into his hips, dipping them against her in firm little grinds to try and force her open all the way and take his knot, but he fell short. He could feel his tip throbbing somewhere deep inside her, so close to being perfectly-seated. The lightning bolt that he felt last time she slipped around his knot was growing more insistent, and it was only with great reluctance that he let the pressure in his hips lessen, sliding back.  
  
Talia clutched at the wall with her one paw, the other grasping around the pipe fitting, making it give a worrying metallic groan, even as she groaned aloud herself. Her tight outer lips were denying him entrance, and as John drew back and _hammered_ her with another series of rough thrusts, she started to sag against the wall, melting under his lustful assault.  
  
“Y-yes… just a little more!” Talia urged, coaching John onwards, even as she tried and failed to support her own weight, her knees weakening.  
  
John gripped tighter around Talia’s hips, heaving her upright, supporting her weight fully and then _pounding_ her with rough, urgent strokes, stuffing her into the wall with his rapid strokes, until he felt her _loosen_ slightly. A heated snarl in his throat as he felt it, and he knew it was the right moment. He snarled ferally as he gripped her hips and then _lunged_ against her, his knot grinding and slipping against her drenched outer lips, stretching and bulging them outwards, further and further, feeling her flesh staring to contain him…  
  
And then her grasp reached that magical half-way point of his knot.  
  
Immediately, John _sank_ past the rest of her resistance, overcoming the final barrier, and he felt her outer lips close down around the back of his knot and grasp the stem of the base of his cock, embedding him balls-deep in her urgently-milking cunt.  
  
John _snarled_ against her, and then bit down on the side of her neck, cramming Talia up against the wall as he felt his knot engorging inside her, thickening and fattening, locking tight inside her while he throbbed stiff and powerful inside her.  
  
“Yes!” Talia shouted, voice muffled by the wall her muzzle was pressed again, and John roughly jerked against her, feeling the tension rising to unbearable levels. He was _crammed_ up against some fleshy barrier deep inside her, filling her utterly, his tip pushed tight to it while soft flesh clenched and milked around him urgently. And then the tension snapped and John _howled_ his delight around her neck, feeling his cock stiffen and jerk, before a sudden urgent volley of his spunk _splashed_ against her deepest barrier.  
  
John and Talia’s snarls of delight intermingled as he flooded her, heavy, urgent spurts of thick, potent spunk splashing against her deepest reaches, utterly painting her insides with repeated sticky rushes of gooey zoroark essence. He thrust against her roughly, rocking her into the wall over and over again, each tug of her outer lips around the back of his knot just renewing the rough blasts of his virile spunk that were already pooling hot and thick within her. His knot kept it all mostly contained within her, but the sheer volume of it started to seep from around the seal, dripping in thick, messy rivulets down her inner thighs as John filled her past capacity, eagerly rocking against her as he thoroughly bred her.  
  
After almost two full minutes of blowing his load deep, deep inside Talia’s clenching cunt, they both started to come down from their orgasms, panting and shuddering hard. The shower pipe gave a groan as Talia sagged, and then it gave way entirely, splitting and then coming away from the wall entirely, sending a rough spray of water cascading out strong enough to hit the far wall of the shower. Without the extra support, Talia fell down onto her knees, taking John with her, but he was so enamoured with the act of _breeding_ her that he didn’t even care, just dropping down onto his knees with her and _stuffing_ her up against the wall again, holding her tight there as he slowly rocked his hips against her and enjoyed the sensation of her squeezing and clenching around every single millimetre of his stiffly-throbbing, spurting cock.  
  


* * *

  
  
John was still drenched, dripping water all over the floor, leaving dark spots and splotches all across the carpet in his living room. He was bent over, rummaging around under the sink, looking for the water shutoff for his apartment. The sound of water _spraying_ from the broken shower pipe and splattering across his bathroom was loud in his ears, and after a few quick twists of the tap, it finally died down to just lazy splatters and then petered out entirely.  
  
He turned around, the curious weight of his gigantic wet mane forcing him to do so slowly, and he found Talia watching him from the doorway, red eyes narrowed at him and a sly grin spread across her muzzle. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to.  
  
He had just fucked a pokemon.  
  
Moreover, he had just _bred_ one, according to Talia.  
  
John stared at her awkwardly, shifting his feet uncertainly as he pulled himself back to his feet. “So… uh…”  
  
“Yes?” Talia asked, leaning against his doorframe and staring at him.  
  
The way her eyes trailed down his form made him shiver.  
  
“Do you always uh... with males you’ve only known for a day?”  
  
Talia tilted her head, her pointed ears perking up. “Yes.”  
  
“Oh,” John said, blinking once, taken aback by the very direct answer.  
  
“We are not like your former kind. We do not spend agonizing years with mating rituals and courting. A male might court us for an extended period of time seeking our partnership, but if we see something we want… we take it.”  
  
“Oh,” John repeated, licking his lips anxiously for a moment. “Though… it was mostly me doing the ‘taking’ a few minutes ago!” he said with a brave stab at bravado.  
  
Talia stared at him, eyes narrowing intently as she prowled towards the couch and put both of her hands on it, leaning over it to stare at him with narrowed, intent red eyes. “Interesting you should say that… Next time, I will be doing the ‘taking’.”  
  
“Next time?” John asked, ears perking up. He felt a faint stirring in his loins, and the urge to cover himself with his paws, which he resisted.  
  
“Next time,” Talia confirmed in a low purr, leaning further over the couch to fix him with an intent stare. “Do you think you will be able to resist me?”  
  
“No,” John admitted with a sheepish laugh.  
  
Talia giggled, and flicked her mane smugly. “Of course you will not.”  
  
“You do know that I’ll be back to a uh… human soon, right?” John asked bluntly.  
  
Talia perked a single ear up at him and then laughed. “So you say.”  
  
“You think it won’t work?” John asked blankly.  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow at him, and then strode towards him around the couch, tapping his nose with a clawtip. “If I believed you wished to return to being a human, I would not have mated with you.”  
  
“You think… I’ll choose to _stay_ a pokemon?”  
  
Talia lifted her paws to motion towards the living room around them. “A choice between this, and _this_?” she said, making a motion towards her own body. “I think I know your choice.”  
  


* * *

  
  
After waking up from what could only be described as a ‘sleep ball’ with Talia, and disentangling his mane from her own, John had tried his best to make a sandwich. Before settling for eating dry cereal. Talia helped him demolish his entire remaining packet of chocolate-pebble breakfast cereal, and despite the overwhelming chocolate taste, his new zoroark-tongue tasted strange chemical additives to the cereal. Maybe they had always been there, but as a zoroark, they started to overpower the chocolate taste and left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. But he was also _ravenous_ after waking up and would have eaten cardboard if it was salted right.  
  
The hike to the half-destroyed research lab was a long one, and John was almost _stunned_ at the lack of transportation, and more importantly, the lack of _carried water_ as a zoroark. As a human, he could just carry a bottle of water, but as a zoroark, he had to drink what water was at his home, and then not drink at all until he found a suitable water source. It was a change in behavior that he definitely didn’t have the hang of yet.  
  
After a three-hour long amble through the woods, John and Talia finally crested a rise in the forest, and John felt that particular stinging in his nose that he associated with the destruction of the lab. There was burnt plastic, scorched metal, some kind of earthy tone that could have been the material the wall was made of, but also something else; a tarry, sooty, cloying smell that made John’s eyes water.  
  
In the daylight, John could see that the lab was utterly ruined. One entire wall had collapsed, and all of the delicate machines John had set up within were blasted to pieces, strewn across the entirety of the laboratory.  
  
Rian was already at the laboratory, staring at the hole in the wall as he leaned on his moped, seemingly numb to the destruction, idly flipping through his tablet and rapidly tapping at keys.  
  
John pulled the illusion of ‘himself’ around his body, in a way that was becoming second-nature, and picked his way through the trees, making for the professor, while Talia faded into the underbrush, disappearing into an illusion, out of sight.  
  
It wasn’t until John was almost touching Rian that the professor looked up, startled, adjusting his glasses and staring at John’s illusion with a strained expression. “My boy!” he cried, straightening up with visible relief. “You… John, yes, _John_!” he fumbled with his words. “I thought the worst!” he added, gesticulating towards the ruined laboratory. “Are you fine? Are you hurt?”  
  
John gave a harrumph, before he remembered that Rian couldn’t see him through the illusion.  
  
“Speak to me, man!” Rian said, reaching out to grab John’s shirt and shake him.  
  
And then his hand went right through the illusion.  
  
John let the illusion fall, and straightened up in front of the professor, looming over him in all his shiny-zoroark glory, and Rian staggered backwards a step, his eyes widening and a series of emotions crossing his face.  
  
Surprise; awe; excitement; glee; realisation; fear.  
  
“My… my boy!” Rian said, lifting both hands to his head to run his fingers through thinning hair in agitation. “I… No. Oh no. No no no.”  
  
“You did this to me,” John stated bluntly. Though he knew now from experience that all the scientist would hear was variations on the word ‘zoroark’.  
  
“You’re so… _perfect_!” Rian said, hissing through his teeth, looking John up and down twice, and then staring at his destroyed laboratory, and then back at John again. “I thought it _must be_ something when I heard the town all abuzz about the shiny zoroark, but I didn’t realise it was _you_. Oh Arceus. Can you understand me?”  
  
John nodded, pursing his lips.  
  
“But, you can’t talk to me,” Rian stated.  
  
John nodded again.  
  
“Okay, how about,” Rian said, pulling out his tablet and holding it up. He flicked through some screens, and brought up a text box, holding it out for John to tap on. “Write something!”  
  
John shook his head slowly. “No.”  
  
Rian frowned at him, opening his mouth to protest, before his eyes narrowed. “Ah, that email you sent me. I thought it was rather… well,” he said, clearing his throat and putting the tablet away. “So… can you _read_ human writing?”  
  
John nodded carefully.  
  
“ _Interesting_ ,” Rian purred, clearly thinking hard about something. “So you can understand speech and writing but can’t replicate it! Bill never did any of these experiments, this is simply marvelous! We must write down our findings!”  
  
“ _Listen to me_!” John almost snarled, lifting a heavy purple claw and thudding the professor on the chest with it. “You did this to me! Fix it!”  
  
Rian stared at John for a long moment, pursing his lips, and then heaved a sigh. “Yes, yes, you’re probably right. We should worry about getting you fixed first. It’s easy enough… so I was told.”  
  
John narrowed his eyes slowly.  
  
“Relax! I just have to replace the machines you broke. Did you… did you plug them all in?”  
  
John tilted his head in thought, and then nodded carefully.  
  
Rian paused and then gave a long, heavy sigh. “The power wasn’t configured for them! The capacitor wasn’t configured! That’s why it blew up!”  
  
John gave him a blank stare.  
  
Rian paused, and then inhaled, holding his breath for several seconds before releasing it in a measured exhale. “Look, I’ll order in the stuff. Express. You look pretty strong, you can help me set it up, _properly_ this time.”  
  
John tilted his head to the side but remained silent.  
  
“Where are your car keys?” Rian asked, eyeing John’s ute.  
  
John glanced towards the blown-out building, and then back at the professor, shaking his head.  
  
Rian stared at him, and then cottoned on. “Ah, you had them with you when it all… hmmm… Your phone?”  
  
John shook his head again.  
  
“Ack. No good. Do you stay at your house still?” When John nodded, Rian continued. “Good, good, I will come get you, when the machines arrive.”  
  
John nodded guardedly, and then looked towards the blown-out building, wrinkling his nose.  
  
Rian paused and stared at him, and his hand twitched towards his tablet. “While you’re here, can I get a picture?”  
  
John stared, arching an eyebrow, and then shook his head firmly.  
  
“It’s the least you can do! You’re here and you’re the _rarest pokemon in the world_ , and that’s what I need! Just one picture! Okay, well, maybe two or three, but still! You owe me! For blowing up my laboratory!”  
  
John’s eyes narrowed. “Look here you little shit, you didn’t tell me not to plug any of the machines in, so it’s _your fault_ for hiring someone at a bar, drunk, and not giving them any instructions other than a diagram _including_ wiring!”  
  
Rian squinted at John thoughtfully through his short tirade, and he pursed his lips, before nodding begrudgingly. “Yes, yes, you’re right—”  
  
John’s ears perked up.  
  
“—There’s no way to quantify how rare shiny zoroarks are because of their illusion abilities.”  
  
John buried his face in his paws and _sighed_.  
  
“But that is why I must have this! The only shiny zoroark in _existence_!”  
  
John lifted his face from out of his paws and stared at the professor dubiously, before sighing heavily again and giving an acquiescing grumble.  
  
“Come!” Rian said, pulling out his tablet and flipping it to ‘selfie’ mode, holding it out in front of himself. Grumbling, John stepped in behind him, staring at the tablet.  
  
“Closer!” Rian urged.  
  
John stepped closer, almost touching the professor now.  
  
“Put an arm over my shoulder!” Rian said excitedly, already having taken several shots.  
  
John narrowed his eyed and laid one of his paws over the professor’s shoulder, and resisted the mad urge to bite the exposed side of his neck out of pure annoyance.  
  
“ _Perfect_!” Rian said, ducking out from under John’s paw and then swiping through his pictures excitedly. “I will be on the front of the magazines!”  
  
“And my fix?” John asked.  
  
Rian peered at him, and then adjusted his glasses. “Yes, yes! The _digest_! I will be on all of them!”  
  
John heaved a long sigh.  
  
“And you will be corrected! Tomorrow, hopefully! I will have the machines shipped over express, you will be back to your unremarkable self in no time at all!”  
  
John stared at the professor dubiously, and then nodded jerkily, before turning and ambling towards the treeline.  
  
“And John! Get yourself a collar,” Rian said, pulling at his lapel with a finger for emphasis. “So that people do not attempt to capture you!”  
  


* * *

  
  
John could _feel_ Talia’s smirk as they ambled under the treetops along the riverside, heading back towards town. John tried his best not to address it, but there was an air of self-satisfaction to Talia that made it impossible to ignore her.  
  
“ _What_?” John asked, pausing and looking back at her over his shoulder.  
  
Talia smiled, stepping closer to him, and lightly brushed a clawtip over his scar. He winced and drew back, but did nothing to stop her. “Your scar makes you handsome.”  
  
“I thought you said you would prefer someone who didn’t get scars in the first place?” John asked blankly.  
  
“My preferences can change,” Talia responded simply.  
  
“What are you so… _smug_ about?” John asked, his tone plaintive.  
  
Talia perked a single ear upwards, and then leaned closer to him, her eyes narrowing intently. “You are disappointed.”  
  
“I… don’t understand where you’re coming from.”  
  
“I heard what your professor said. That you will ‘be fixed’ tomorrow, and I saw your ears droop. You were disappointed.”  
  
“I might just not want to wait that long?” John offered with an oblique stare at the female.  
  
Talia’s gaze held his own unwaveringly, and then she smirked, revealing rows of teeth. “No, no, I have caught your stares. I know that you are excited to get me alone again.”  
  
John felt his cheeks warming, and he straightened up a little, huffing. “I don’t know what gives you that idea.”  
  
“Your stares,” Talia reiterated with a giggle. “And your disappointment that you will be ‘fixed’ so soon. I could _feel_ your disdain for the professor with each of his sentences.”  
  
“Yeah, I forgot how insufferable he is. Pay was good—actually, scratch that, I didn’t even get paid yet.”  
  
“And you are thinking… maybe you could hide for a week, stay as a zoroark and enjoy it for a little while more,” Talia pressed, smiling knowingly.  
  
John’s ears flattened back, and he shifted his weight uncomfortably. “How can you _possibly_ know that?”  
  
“Zoroark are good with body-language. You are very… _open_ with yours.”  
  
John frowned, staring down at his paws, and then shifted his feet uncomfortably. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t like running away from everyone. But... “ he stared at his paws, flexing the purple claws slowly. “But I feel stronger. And faster. And… I dunno. More alive.”  
  
Talia smiled at him coyly, and tossed her mane with a smug hum. “Zoroark are superior to humans, yes.”  
  
“But I can’t just _stay_ a zoroark,” John pointed out blankly.  
  
Talia perked a single ear upwards. “Why not?”  
  
“Because…” John trailed off, working his jaw slowly as he tried to come up with a cogent response. “Because—”  
  
“—You are a human?” Talia finished for him, smirking.  
  
John narrowed his eyes slowly.  
  
“Perhaps it is because you were human and humans do not evolve that you question your evolution. But I was once a zorua. When I became a zoroark, I did not question why or seek to return. I am just a zoroark now,” Talia explained. “You are not a _human_ , you _were_ a human.”  
  
“But… my… job and…” John’s shoulders slumped.  
  
Talia giggled at that, and then shook her head. “You can not even convince yourself that your job convinces you to go back to being human. Tell me… do you enjoy being a human more than a zoroark, or do you want to go back simply because ‘I am a human’?”  
  
John pursed his lips, and licked his tongue over sharp teeth uncertainly. “I haven’t really thought about it.”  
  
“Perhaps you should,” Talia giggled, brushing past him as she continued on down the path.  
  


* * *

  
  
A knock on the door startled John awake, and he uncurled slowly, staring down the hallway with wide eyes.  
  
“Are you not going to answer?” Talia asked sleepily from beside him, lifting her heavy mane up and adjusting it with a tired paw.  
  
“Oh, I… uh,” John hemmed and hawed. “It’s probably just the mailman.”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow at him, one sleepy red eye narrowing at him intently. “I can smell the laboratory on him. It is your professor.”  
  
“Oh…” John murmured, averting his gaze as the knock came again. “I guess you’re right.”  
  
Talia smirked knowingly at him, and then rose up onto her knees, giving a slow, sinuous stretch.  
  
John couldn’t help but watch.  
  
“Go, answer your door,” Talia said, motioning with her nose towards the hallway.  
  
Grumbling, John extricated his mane from Talia’s, and then prowled into the loungeroom, heading down the hallway to his front door. He paused a moment, before he grasped the knob in both of his ungainly paws and twisted it until the door opened.  
  
“My boy!” Rian said with a smile, pushing the door open and muscling his way inside, ignoring John’s noise of protest. “The machines have arrived! As promised! The truck is waiting out front! Put this on.” He pushed a slim black leather collar into John’s chest, and John stared down at it in confusion.  
  
“So that people don’t think you’re a wild pokemon,” Rian explained, nodding earnestly.  
  
John took the collar, and then held it up with one long purple talon for Rian to see, giving him a dubious stare all the while.  
  
“Ack, yes, the claws,” Rian tutted, snatching it from John and deftly undoing the clasp. He held it up until John leaned down enough to allow it to be fastened. Carefully, Rian cinched it down, slipping his fingers between the collar and his fur, and tugging it once or twice to make sure it fit properly before deeming it ‘done’.  
  
“Uh, thanks…” John said uncertainly.  
  
“All synthetic, yes,” Rian said with an understanding nod.  
  
John shook his head slowly.  
  
“We are going?” Talia asked, peeking around the hallway.  
  
Rian’s eyes widened, and he stared past John, at Talia, and then back to John again, an eyebrow raising. “Three days and you already got a ‘friend’?” he asked, his tone coy.  
  
John furrowed his brow, and Talia giggled impishly. “He thinks that _you_ are the dominant personality in this relationship? Cute.”  
  
John’s ears flattened back, and he licked his teeth with a helpless shrug.  
  
“I don’t know if you’ll both fit in the back of the truck… we can try it though,” Rian said, beckoning for John to follow him.  
  
John stepped through the doorway, to find a compact blue moving-truck pulled up out front.  
  
Rian looked back at him, squinting and blinking once in surprise, and John realised that he had subconsciously ‘illusioned’ himself back as a human. It was already second-nature to do it the instant he meant to step outside.  
  
Setting his jaw, John let his illusion drop, drawing his shoulders up, ears flattening and body tensing as though expecting pokeballs to just erupt from the air nearby. A nearby pedestrian walking down the sidewalk spotted him, and she reached for a pokeball at her belt before spotting his collar, and her eyes widened in dismay.  
  
John gave the trainer a slightly anxious smile, his eyes flicking towards her hand, but she just gave Rian an _extremely_ dirty look as she continued down the path.  
  
“Interesting. I had never thought to disguise myself so simply with physical things… it is very clever,” Talia observed, stepping closer to John and sniffing at his collar. She wrinkled her nose, and then turned her head. “I would like one of these for myself… after it has been rolled in the dirt many, many times.”  
  
“Yeah it does smell kind of…” John paused, not quite certain what word to use to describe the chemical scent the collar gave off. As a human, he would never have noticed, but as a zoroark, it was quite pungent.  
  
“I believe these things come with a long rope,” Talia said, hooking a claw in his collar and tugging it once.  
  
“Uh, a leash?” John offered.  
  
“Leash…” Talia said carefully, rolling the word over her tongue. “Yes, I would like one of these ‘leashes’.”  
  
“Why?” John asked blankly.  
  
Talia smiled at him impishly, and licked her lips. “For reasons that should be obvious.”  
  
“Is it a sex thing, it feels like a sex thing,” John responded plaintively.  
  
Talia smiled, and brushed her nose against his own in an affectionate nuzzle. “It is, yes.”  
  
“Uh… on me or on you?” John asked, doing his best to return the gesture of affection, though it was still hard to gauge the distance of his new nose from the rest of his face.  
  
Talia smiled at him, revealing rows of pointed teeth.  
  
“C’mon you two!” Rian interjected, opening up the rear doors of the truck. Within the truck were boxes stacked to the ceiling haphazardly, and almost enough space for two zoroark to stand. Talia was first to enter, carefully clambering up into the truck; the rear suspension visibly sank under her weight. And then John climbed in behind her, having to press in close to her to fit. His heavy mane, thankfully, could be draped over the boxes. But there was no getting over the fact that his feet had to be almost uncomfortably-close to Talia’s own to fit. And not helping was the fact that Talia had elected to stand facing away from him.  
  
Rian closed and latched the rear doors before John could complain, plunging them into relative darkness. By the time John heard the doors close, and the engine turn over, his eyes were already adjusting to the darkness.  
  
Talia leaned back against him with a faint hum, careful not to jostle the boxes. The truck swayed as Rian pulled out from the parking spot, and John almost tumbled, leaning back against the wall, and Talia took the opportunity to lean back against him properly, almost pinning him to the wall, and leaving the rear of her body grinding pleasantly up against his front.  
  
“Oof, kinda tight in here,” John said with a laugh.  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow, peering at him over her shoulder and then giving a toothy smile. “You refer, of course, to your present company?”  
  
John felt his cheeks flush with warmth. “N-no, I just mean… it’s _close_ back here.”  
  
“Yes, very much,” Talia purred, leaning back against him deliberately, pressing her rump into his crotch with the motions of the truck travelling over the uneven ground. “How long does this machine take to get to the lab?” Talia asked, her tone even.  
  
“I think… a half hour at least. There are a lot of switchbacks we skipped when we walked up there. The road is kind of winding,” John said, slipping his paws down to grip Talia’s hips, both for balance and also for the sheer tactile wonderfulness of feeling those large, sleek zoroark hips in his grasp. “Why?”  
  
“It is very close back here,” Talia commented, smiling at him over her shoulder and then leaning enough of her weight back into his form that he was forced to take a step backwards. His mane pressed up against the wall of the truck, cushioning him against it, and Talia used the advantage of literally having his back against the wall to lift herself up and press back against him, curling her mane to the side and out of the way so that his heavy sheath was pushed directly up between her thighs. She leaned forwards, just enough that the softly-furred outer lips of that soft zoroark cunt grazed against the top of his sheath in a way  
  
that was utterly intoxicating.  
  
“”Y-yes, very close,” John murmured, staring down at her hips in the gloom, squeezing them with warm paws.  
  
Talia pressed her weight back against him, deliberately pushing her soft pussy right against his sheath, letting the rocking motions of the truck make her hips gyrate slowly against him.  
  
“Talia… I don’t think this is such a great idea,” John said reluctantly, unable to resist the urge to grind his hips against her own in counterpoint. Already, he could feel his traitorous sheath swelling, bulging with hidden purple flesh, the very point of it swelling up out of the end of his sheath to be met by another very deliberate grind of Talia’s hips.  
  
She looked over her shoulder at him, a single ear perking curiously, while one of her paws slipped down between her thighs, fondling his heavy balls and stroking at the front of his sheath, just making him swell all the more urgently between her thighs.  
  
“If I get… uh… stuck in you again,” John said helplessly, his ears flattening back as he rocked his hips against her own slowly.  
  
Talia stared at him, tilting her head before giving him a toothy smile. She gave a squeeze of his balls, lightly fondling them once more. “If you bring me to orgasm before the trip is over, then I will finish you with my mouth.”  
  
John’s eyes widened, and he felt a _throb_ of lustful eagerness in the centre of his stomach that was echoed in the urgent straining thickening of his purple cock, and he nodded dumbly. “O-oh actually that sounds like a great idea,” he stammered enthusiastically.  
  
“The sun is lowering,” Talia said expectantly, leaning back against him and lifting both of her paws up to grasp around the back of his neck, arching her back against him, deliberately pushing her rump in against his crotch. “I much like this position; the same as last night.”  
  
“You said that _you_ would be the one doing the taking next time,” John said with a short laugh, burying his nose in the side of her neck, inhaling her delightful scent and giving a deliberate grind of his hips against her own. Already, he was half-hard, that heavy cock bulging out and pressing against her inner thighs, deliberately pressing it against the length of that long, soft, delightfully warm slit.  
  
“I must have been mistaken,” Talia said with a sly smile, sliding one of her paws down the length of her own sleek form to press between her thighs once more. A careful talon deliberately slid a smooth edge up the underside of John’s growing cock, and it made his hips shift and grind helplessly against her, the light tough causing a tingle in his loins. “You must be careful, John. As much as I love that you will lose yourself to your pokemon desires, you cannot do so here. You cannot knot me.”  
  
John nodded dumbly against the side of her neck, and then growled softly, biting down on the side of her scruff. His paws roamed down her form, grasping her hips and then her thighs, pressing them together, which caused her furry thighs to clench around his stiffening cock. Talia gasped softly as he _thrust_ between her thighs, the top of his cock grinding against the bare outer lips of her soft cunny, jutting out a few inches from the space between her thighs.  
  
Smirking over her shoulder at him, Talia slid her paw down to capture the tip of his vividly-purple cock, deliberately ‘polishing’ the tip as she tightened her thighs around him, a wicked smirk spreading across her muzzle as it made him stiffen against her in more ways than one!  
  
John’s paws gripped her hips, pulling her back against him, and he ground his forming knot right against the back of Talia’s thighs, hissing faintly as she polished his tip. He was already drooling precum, wetting the centre of her paw, and as he started to stiffen properly, he was pressing all-the-more insistently into Talia’s agile grasp.  
  
A wicked gleam flashed in Talia’s eyes, and as the truck hit a bump, she widened her stance, deliberately letting John’s knot press right between her thighs, before she quickly closed her thighs back on him, trapping his knot right between her furry thighs, cushioned on every side! John _stiffened_ against her, his cock throbbing urgently and his talons digging into her hips as she giggled and shifted _both_ of her paws down to tease his achingly-stiff cock. In seconds, he was rock-hard, throbbing and pulsing urgently under her touch, while the intoxicatingly-soft lips of her tantalizing cunt ground and shifted right against the top of his knot, wetting it with her liquids.  
  
“F-fuck, Talia! M-my k-knot!” John stammered against her, his teeth baring and hips urgently pressing against her, almost sending them both off-balance.  
  
“It is a very nice knot, yes,” Talia agreed, a wicked giggle hidden in her voice, her thighs tightening around him even more intently. Her hips were moving slowly, _tugging_ at his knot, and the occasional bump of the truck going around a bend or hitting an uneven section of the road had her tugging and squeezing around his knot in mind-bending fashion.  
  
“No… Mrf… you’re gonna make me cum!” John hissed against the side of her neck, grinding his hips against her helplessly. Talia smirked and gave a deliberate squeeze of her powerful thighs around him, staring down at him and giggling wickedly when she saw his cock _throb_ and loose a spurt of precum from the pointed tip, splashing down over the dark floor of the truck.  
  
“That would be a shame,” Talia mused, carefully grinding herself against the top of his knot, tugging his cock up against her with her paws, deliberately rubbing down against him in a way that had his stiffly-throbbing cock grinding against her clit. “This feels sublime.”  
  
“You know what you’re doing,” John growled between gritted teeth, hunching over the female and grinding his hips against her in earnest, though the way she moved and her grip on his knot meant he could only tug at her impotently.  
  
“Certainly, but… what are you going to do about it?” Talia simpered, looking at him over her shoulder and perking a single ear, licking her lips lasciviously and giving a deliberate _grind_ of her slick paw right against the very tip of his stiffly-throbbing cock.  
  
John _growled_ , deep and low in his throat, a sound he didn’t even know he was capable of producing, and wrapped his paws around the female. Talia gave a gasp at his actions, but very carefully spread her thighs, letting him rescue his cock from between them as he hefted her, and she gave a soft little giggle as John spun her around and _pinned_ her against some boxes, his heavy cock bumping up against her belly and throbbing heavily against her taut stomach.  
  
“You are cute when you are needy,” Talia stated, lifting a paw to lightly stroke a claw through his cheekfur.  
  
John’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and one of his paws lowered, grasping around the back of Talia’s ‘knee’. She gasped as he tilted her, and she found herself sprawled out over a box, crushing the top of it. Another box fell over nearby, and John’s ears twitched as he distinctly heard the sound of something breaking, but he was _far_ too interested in the zoroark laid out on her back in front of him to care.  
  
Talia automatically lifted one of her legs, hooking it over John’s shoulder as he pressed closer to her. The box had crushed down to almost waist-height, and the heavy machine within gave enough support to hold her there properly as John hunched over her, _shoving_ his achingly-stiff cock right up against her drooling cunt as he leant over her in the darkness, red eyes staring down at her with hunger gleaming bright in them.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Talia asked, staring up at him with a wicked little smile, even as he squeezed her leg around his hips, grinding his stiff cock directly against her drooling cunt.  
  
“I’m going to _fuck you_ ,” John growled, arching his hips, having to fight against the playful pressure Talia put on his hips with her leg, until his tip could finally align with that glisteningly-wet zoroark cunny. His hips arched forwards, and he _growled_ in triumph as he felt soft, supple flesh spreading around his pointed tip, even as Talia arched and shivered beneath him, her stomach visibly rippling.  
  
A hungry little noise escaped John, and he hunched forwards, gripping the box Talia was one to tug her against him, letting him sink two third of his achingly-stiff cock inside her, feeling her tight muscles squeezing and clenching and protesting his entry even as her claws dug into his shoulders.  
  
Growling, he buried his muzzle in her shoulder, biting down on her fur as he set his stance and then _lunged_ forwards. Talia stiffened and arched against him, giving a loud gasp and a soft cry as John buried in her until the top of his fat knot _thudded_ against her outer lips, rocking her and the box she was on top of.  
  
Thankfully, the constant swaying of the truck as it rounded bends in the winding road meant that their union wouldn’t be noticed by Rian, and John didn’t have to worry about being gentle. It was probably for the best, because he was so _achingly hard_ by that point that nothing was going to stop him from rutting the female until he came.  
  
Talia wrapped her legs around John’s middle as he straightened up to stare down at her, and she smirked up at him, sliding one of her paws down his front to touch at the top of his knot, rubbing over it with a soft little hum. “You still have yet to make me orgasm.”  
  
“I’m working on it,” John growled, hunching over her properly and narrowing eyes down at her intently. His powerful paws found her hips, and he held her tightly in place as he adjusted his stance, fighting against the swaying of the truck for a moment. The instant his balance was regained, he _hammered_ Talia with a rough, urgent series of thrusts, stuff his cock inside her over and over again, his stiff purple length plunging deep inside her and grinding against points deep inside her while heated precum splashed across her insides.  
  
Talia groaned, lifting a paw up to her muzzle to bite and muffle her noises as John fucked her. One of his paws slipped back to grasp behind her knee, and he lifted her leg, giving him an even better angle and more room to _hammer_ her with, and very quickly, his fat, heavy knot was _slamming_ insistently at her outer lips, pounding and rocking against her.  
  
John growled hungrily as he hunched over the female, talons digging into her hip as he lifted one of his lips, putting it up on a low box and giving himself even more leverage to hammer her with. His knot was slipping against her, heavy and fat, the top third of it slick with her liquids and getting slicker even time he slammed it against her, sending a small splash of her liquids backwashing over the throbbing bulb of flesh.  
  
“John,” Talia warned quietly around her muzzlefull of her own talons, staring at him in warning.  
  
John growled, but just redoubled his eager pace, putting more of his weight behind his straining cock, grinding deeper and deeper into Talia. He could feel the tight resistance of her internal muscles unknitting, and his pounding knot prying at her slippery cunt edging deeper and deeper. She was loosening up, readying to accept his knot, and he was eager to give it to her.  
  
“J-John!” Talia hissed, biting down on one of her talons hard enough that she scored teethmarks into the side of it, even as John grasped her hips and legs, shoving her down into the box as he started to _rut_ her. Powerful hips hammered against her in a furious rhythm, his motions intent and deliberate, red eyes staring down at her hungrily as his knot started to pry her open, feeling her reach that magical half-way point where he knew, deep down, she would take his knot on his next thrust.  
  
With a snarl of triumph, John drew back and then _slammed_ forwards, shoving his knot against Talia with wicked intent just as she closed her thighs, deliberately hooking her heels behind his shoulders. The intense _tightness_ that greeted John almost pushed him over the edge immediately, and he grasped around Talia’s legs on reflex, _snarling_ as she squeezed down around him so tightly that he felt each _throb_ of blood in his cock like he had a pressure cuff on.  
  
Talia’s nimble paws slipped down, rubbing smooth talons against her clit even as she gripped his knot with her paw, giving it a firm _squeeze_.  
  
John _gasped_ and shuddered against the zoroark, his hips jerking on raw instinct, sliding back an inch or so and then stuffing back inside her. He bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood, his cock urgently throbbing and jerking inside her, _demanding_ he stuff his knot inside her, but Talia had a tight grip around him with her legs, and with her thighs closed, he could only get the leverage to grind against her in urgent rocking motions, feeling her insides squeezing and tugging around him in rhythmic clenches.  
  
Talia’s legs tightened around him even further, and her entire form tensed as she lifted one of her paws, biting down on her talon once more. Her insides _clenched_ around him, squeezing and tugging and cinching down around every millimetre of his straining cock, coaxing and gyrating all around him as she orgasmed, forcing him to rock his hips against her, desperately trying to seat his knot inside her in vain.  
  
After several long seconds of delicious torture, Talia’s eyes unclouded, and then fixated on him, a wicked grin spread across her muzzle. John barely had time to blink before her paws found his knot again, and she _squeezed_ both sides of it with both of her paws at once, giving several rhythmic clenches around it.  
  
John _snarled_ aloud, hunching over Talia and shoving his hips against her urgently as he _exploded_ inside her, feeling his cock bloat out and his knot bulging against her inner thighs as sudden lances of heated zoroark spunk splattered deep inside her. He had a much more full range of motion than last time, and couldn’t help but _shove_ his hips against her, cramming that heavy knot against her outer lips in urgent motions even as his strainingly, stiffly-throbbing cocktip pumped a barrage of gooey spunk across the depths of her stuffed cunt, splattering her inner depths and utterly flooding them with mess.  
  
With a growl, John thrust against her, rocking her back and forth, and then suddenly withdrew, one of his paws reaching forwards to grasp the back of her head, trying in vain to crawl up her form. Talia was all-too-happy to help, curling down towards him, opening her muzzle up as his cock spurted heavy ropes of spunk right over her chest and belly, until he could finally aim it towards her face. A heavy lance of his mess splashed her chin, and then her cheek, and then finally he caught her tongue with it, painting over it in a heavy stripe that splattered wetly into her open muzzle. Talia tried to curl further down towards him, but John _growled_ and held her in place with his talons in her mane, gripping his urgently-throbbing cock in a paw and swiftly stroking it, summoning forth more of those heavy spurts to splash over Talia’s face and muzzle.  
  
Talia seemed to smirk at him, holding her muzzle open for his deluge, extending her tongue to let him paint it, even as her used cunt drooled a slick dribble of messy zoroark spunk.  
  
As John’s spurts started to die down to a trickle, his grip relaxed, and Talia curled further, still holding his knot in both paws as she closed her lips over him and nursed on him softly, her tongue delicately swirling over his pointed tip, summoning up the last of his potent spurts.  
  
“Mnf.. fuck…” John purred, staring down at him.  
  
Talia smirked, flicking her tongue against his tip again, and then staring up at him, drawing back and _swallowing_ audibly. It made John’s cock twitch, and he gave a faint groan, carefully disentangling his talons from her mane.  
  
“You are very set on breeding me,” Talia said matter-of-factly, sliding her talons carefully down her smooth stomach to where her drooling cunt was slowly oozing John’s spunk.  
  
John’s ears perked up, and he followed the motion of her paw, watching her idly rub a paw over her sticky, stuffed entrance. “Do you think I could even…?”  
  
“What?” Talia questioned, dipping a talon inside herself thoughtfully.  
  
John licked his lips anxiously, leaning against her, trying to catch his breath. “You know… uh, _breed_ you. I’m not a zoroark.”  
  
“You are a zoroark,” Talia said with a soft little laugh. She lifted her claws to her muzzle, sniffing the mess on them curiously. “Mmm… yes. You are quite capable of breeding me. If you have not already,” she purred, sliding her talons down her form again and then lifting one of her thighs, spreading herself for his viewing pleasure. She slid her talons between her lips, spreading that recently-fucked entrance for him, letting him gaze into her spread, thoroughly-fucked cunt, and the leaking mess of his white spunk that was drooling from it.  
  
John could only _stare_ , his ears flattening back as he chuckled at her, leaning heavily against the female and bumping his muzzle against her own. “It’s nothing to worry about thought, right?”  
  
“No, it is not,” Talia said with a warm smile, bumping her muzzle up against him. “I do not mind you stuffing me full of your children.”  
  
John’s ears flattened back fully, and he stared down at her. He lifted his paws up to peer at one of his talons, and the string of his own spunk that had caught on it, feeling his throat go dry.  
  
Talia smiled up at him, and then licked his cheek warmly, sliding the talon into her muzzle and suckling at it lewdly for a long moment. “And you enjoy it, too.”  
  
“Y-yeah,” John admitted hesitantly, rubbing his paw anxiously through his mane.  
  


* * *

  
  
The door to the back of the truck rolled up, and John and Talia were finally freed from the cramped confines. Thankfully, Rian’s nose was human, and couldn’t detect the debauchery that was clouding John’s nose so strongly.  
  
John carefully stepped down from the back of the truck, and immediately wrinkled his nose at that strange scent wafting from the laboratory. It was like burnt hair and vomit; an utterly acrid, disgusting scent that made his stomach turn over itself.  
  
“These boxes, they must go inside,” Rian said, staring at John and Talia expectantly.  
  
John’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded, and turned to pick up a box. Talia flipped her mane, and then smirked at him. “I am going to get cleaned up. You can enjoy moving the boxes since you made such a mess of me,” she stated, ambling off towards the nearby stream.  
  
“Wasn’t there another zoroark in there with you?” Rian asked, scratching his head.  
  
John just sighed and started carrying the boxes into the lab.  
  


* * *

  
  
The acrid smell of burn wiring and shorted circuit boards was still strong in the air, along with some other smell that John could only barely recognize. It was like the time he had accidentally microwaved a fork, only worse. It stung his nose so badly that he had to breathe through his mouth to stop his eyes from watering, and that just made him closely appreciate the new shape of his tongue.  
  
“In the circle, please,” Rian motioned, gesturing towards a circle roughly scribed on the floor. Most of the debris had been cleared away, save for a small pile of electronics that might still be saved. The hole in the wall had been patched over, and was still unpainted, clashing horribly with the rest of the room.  
  
John carefully moved over to stand in the circle provided, and looked up at the emitter pointed in what he perceived as an almost _threatening_ way down at his head. The machines were all connected up save for the last connection, the one that John vaguely remembered plugging in before everything _exploded_.  
  
Rian picked up the heavy cable, threaded with its own fitting like a firehose, and plugged it into the machine. John winced, but nothing exploded this time. Humming thoughtfully, Rian spun the tightening ring until it was clamped down properly, and then moved to stand in front of the console, fiddling with some settings. A heavy silver bar lever was lifted up into the ‘on’ position, and John saw the newly-lit lights lighting up Rian’s face as the machine hummed to life. There was a powerful _tingle_ that went down John’s spine, and he felt the soft _hum_ of the power thrumming through the machine like he was standing too close to a transformer.  
  
Rian shifted to the other console, and pulled out a sheet of paper with equations on it, staring down at it as he started to fiddle with dials and flat levers, setting various power levels and then staring intently at a waveform readout display that was being slowly scribed onto a flowing sheet of paper.  
  
“Ah yes, we should be ready to go in a moment,” Rian said conversationally. “Please keep arm… _paws_ and… paws? Within the circle at all times.”  
  
John nodded jerkily, standing more upright to ensure that all of his body was back inside the circle.  
  
The hairs on John’s neck stood up, and he looked to the side, his eyes meeting Talia’s. She was standing outside the window, watching him, her pointed nose almost pressed to the glass, red  
  
eyes meeting his own impassively.  
  
Rian slid another bar up into place, and John’s ears flattened back as he heard a high-pitched whining starting up. It was the same noise he had heard at the beginning; when he had been turned. Like a jet engine kicking into high gear.  
  
The fur on John’s arms started to stand on end, and he glanced upwards at the coil extending down from the roof towards him, feeling his heart-rate starting to pick up faster and faster.  
  
“Just a few more moments for the capacitors to reach full power!” Rian called out over the terrifying noise of the machines kicking over into full gear.  
  
Rian produced a pair of goggles, and then strapped them on, further enhancing his ‘mad scientist’ look. John heard him as he flipped up three different toggle switches in a row, removing the safeties and then pressing them up into the ‘ready’ position with a trio of satisfying clunks. The lights dimmed with the energy drain, and the thrumming of energy slowed for a moment before rising to an angry whine. And then Rian reached for what John could only assume was the ‘fire’ button, a final press needed to complete the circuit.  
  
John’s eyes met Talia’s again, and he found her expression as inscrutable as ever. He never really could tell what she was thinking, or what her opinion was without asking her directly. Would she stick around when John was back to ‘normal’?  
  
He hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.  
  
Rian pressed the ‘arming’ button, and the coil above the circle ignited with energy—  
  
—Just as John stepped out of the circle.  
  
There was a brilliant flash of light and energy, contained this time, before something in the circuit box exploded in a shower of sparks and the building was plunged into darkness.  
  
“My boy!” Rian called, reaching up to take off his goggles. Another spray of sparks spilled from the side of the short-circuiting machine, and gave enough light for Rian to see the large form of John standing vaguely near the circle, with all of his fur puffed out, standing on end.  
  
John cringed, and tried to brush his fur down flat with his paws, dragging purple talons through it helplessly. There was so much static in his fur from the machine’s discharge that he felt, and saw, vibrant sparks of electricity arcs across his paws as he smoothed his fur back down.  
  
“Ack, I must have gotten something wrong,” Rian said, lifting a hand to cup his chin thoughtfully as he moved around to the sparking machine. He punched the emergency-stop button, and the angry sputtering and whining from it stopped immediately. “This is… not good.”  
  
Rian looked up over the machine at John, and sighed softly, assuming that the short-circuit was what had fouled the ‘fix’. “Sorry. I must replace the machine. New capacitor. It’ll be here tomorrow, day after?”  
  
John carefully stepped around the circle, and nodded his understanding.  
  
“I will order the new parts right now,” Rian said, drawing his phone from the breast pocket of his coat. “We will have you back to your old self in no time!”  
  
John just nodded, and as Rian dialed the number for his supplier, John stepped past him, and to the door, slipping through it and outside. A creeping vine dispersed and resolved into Talia leaning against the wall, watching him placidly. “It broke?” she asked simply.  
  
John almost nodded, but then paused and shook his head. “Yes and no.”  
  
Talia perked a single ear.  
  
“I kinda… stepped out of the circle,” John said, smoothing down his fur again, grimacing at the sparks that cascaded off his electrified fur.  
  
Talia peered at him intently, and as he drew closer, she leaned back, understanding that his fur was charged at that moment. “This is why it did not work?”  
  
“Mostly, yeah,” John admitted, leaning against the wall beside Talia, facing her, rubbing a paw through his mane.  
  
Talia watched him, her ears perked, following the motion of his paw, before fixing back on him, holding his gaze, that tiny smirk reappearing. “Why did you step out of the circle, John?”  
  
John’s ears flattened, and Talia’s smirk widened as he broke eye contact with her, averting his gaze downwards, scratching at the ground with his claws. “I…”  
  
Talia perked that single ear upwards again, leaning closer to him, only to get zapped by the static electricity in his fur! She jolted backwards, eyes watering, and shook her head firmly, drawing back for a giant sneeze while John dodged backwards with a laugh.  
  
“N-n-na **CHOO**! Not funny!” Talia complained, rubbing her nose with a paw and narrowed her eyes at him intently. “You are avoiding my question.”  
  
“You already know why,” John said sullenly.  
  
Talia licked her lips and then smirked, leaning closer to him now that the static in his fur had been dissipated. “You know it, too. Yet you will not speak it.”  
  
John pursed his lips.  
  
“He will fix the machine, yes?” Talia asked, pointing with her nose towards Rian, who was pacing back and forth, on-hold music audible from his phone.  
  
John nodded carefully.  
  
“Then we will stay,” Talia decided.  
  
“Why?” John asked, his shoulders slumping. “Why do you know what I’m going to do before I’m going to do it? Why are we staying if _you_ already know what I’m going to decide before I’ve decided myself?”  
  
Talia perked an ear up at him, and then poked her tongue out for a moment with a teasing little hum. “Have you ever been pounced by a houndoom?”  
  
John stared at her dubiously. “No.”  
  
Talia made a motion with a paw. “They wait to pounce. They are patient, careful. They judge the perfect time to strike, and when they see it, they make the decision to pounce. But… _before_ they pounce, they must adjust their stance, they must crouch low,” Talia made motions with her paws, as though lowering herself, “They must tense muscles, get proper grasp with paws, and even before they _decide_ to pounce… there is a moment, where you can see that they are going to pounce, before they themselves have made the decision to pounce.”  
  
“Okay so… I’m waiting to pounce?” John asked, confused.  
  
Talia nodded, and smiled at him, leaning forwards until her nose was resting against his own. “I have watched you doing all those things. Becoming ready to ‘pounce’, over the last days.”  
  
John pursed his lips, running his tongue over his new, sharp teeth. “So what are we waiting for if you already know what I’m going to choose?”  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow at him, and then reached out a paw to lay on his nose. He jerked his head back at the slightly electric shock it gave him, snorting once. “Because,” Talia explained, holding his gaze calmly. “If you pick up a houndoom and throw it, it did not pounce, you simply threw it.”  
  


* * *

  
  
John wrinkled his nose at the smell of engine exhaust as Rian’s truck pulled away from the lab and back onto the road, heading back to town. John and Talia had elected to stay behind, with John grasping two M.R.E packets in one large paw. It had been all the food the professor had ready to go, but it was enough to last them until Rian returned with the fixed capacitor.  
  
Talia was humming happily, and already heading for the stream nearby, the same stream that John had first fled to after his change. He fell into step behind her, ears perked up, listening in case any trainers were about. His collar would probably stop any pokeballs being thrown at him. Probably.  
  
“Why aren’t you pressuring me?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia perked an ear back at him, but kept walking. “What good would there be in pressuring you?”  
  
John harrumped and chewed his tongue for a moment, wincing at how sharp his teeth were and then chewing more carefully. “I… My ex. She always pressured me about things she thought were ‘right’. Like donating to the F.L.I.F.F, or whatever. She didn’t let it drop.”  
  
“F.L… What?” Talia asked, confused.  
  
“Big institute for pokemon research up north a ways. They do research to better understand pokemon or something,” John explained.  
  
Talia nodded. “I know of it, yes. We call it ‘The Dragon Fang Forest’.”  
  
John stared in confusion at the back of her head as they continued walking. “The what?”  
  
“Dragon Fang Forest,” Talia reiterated. “Because those that enter rarely return.”  
  
“Oh it’s just a research centre. Nothing nefarious… I don’t think. There’s a big entire park in there that’s fenced off and closed to the public where they study pokemon. They don’t let anyone in or out, not even trainers. A whole protected park.”  
  
“Perhaps we will investigate this place, if they do not allow trainers,” Talia mused.  
  
John frowned, chewing his lip. “See, there it is again. You speak as though I’ve already made a decision but you don’t pressure me to make one.”  
  
“You have already made your decision,” Talia said with a giggle, stepping to the side as they reached the river. She knelt down at the edge of the water, scooping up a pawful and sniffing it, before lapping at the edge of the water.  
  
John watched her, and then frowned and moved to kneel beside her, dipping down to lap at the water as well, while Talia cast her gaze about, and then carefully stepped out towards the centre of the stream, wading into the water.  
  
“If I were to pressure you, you would not enjoy it,” Talia explained calmly, turning to face him, the water barely up to her hips. “You must come to make the decision yourself.”  
  
“So you already know what I’m going to pick but you’re letting me come to the decision myself?” John asked blankly, lifting his head and then taking a step into the water himself. The water was cool, a nice contrast to the heavy sunlight.  
  
“Yes, exactly,” Talia stated simply. “Like a trainer that could capture a weakened pokemon, but instead gives the pokemon a choice to come willingly.”  
  
“Are you saying I’m weakened?” John asked, arching an eyebrow.  
  
Talia giggled, and then shook her head, wading closer to him and taking one of the bags of M.R.Es from him, inspecting it for a moment. “Weakened to my charms? Yes.”  
  
John narrowed his eyes at the female, and then huffed, wrapping his paws around her and pulling her against his front, bumping his nose against her own. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”  
  
“And even if I were not, I could appear to be so,” Talia said with a giggle, until John lifted a paw to clasp over her muzzle, silencing her.  
  
“You want me to give up being a human and just… live with you?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia peered at him impassively, her ears perked forwards and eyes narrowing slowly, waiting for John to remove his paw before answering. “I would like that, yes.”  
  
John bit his tongue, and waded over to the centre of the stream, where a rock interrupted the flow. He pulled himself up onto it, and settled there, laying out his M.R.E next to him as Talia crawled up beside him to do the same.  
  
“You are still undecided,” Talia observed.  
  
“Yeah,” John grumbled, tearing his M.R.E open and looking down at the contents. There were several little bags of sealed food inside, with snacks and condiments, along with a big pack of vegetable curry. John fished out the muesli bar first, and tore open the packaging, revealing the colourless bar. He bit into it, and started chewing, only to immediately discover that his new teeth were _not_ built for mashing down muesli grains. Once he separated the grains with his teeth, there was nothing left to do but swallow them whole.  
  
Grimacing, John swallowed the far-to-chunky muesli, before placing the rest of the uneaten bar back in the packet.  
  
  
  
Talia was staring dubiously down at her packet, and John leaned past her to look into her package, fishing out the little condensed milk package. “This one.”  
  
“It is good?” Talia asked hopefully.  
  
“Very sweet,” John responded, digging through his own pack until he found the chocolate bar, and tearing into it while Talia carefully split open a corner of her packet and sniffed the corner.  
  
Deciding that it smelled edible, Talia curled her tongue along the edge of the packaging, picking up a taste of the condensed milk within. She paused, and then made a pleased sound, wrapping her lips around the packet and then suckling on it slowly.  
  
John watched her, red eyes narrowed, his ears tipped forwards and then flattening back again.  
  
“What would you be leaving behind?” Talia asked simply, drawing the package away from her muzzle and licking her lips a few times to clear the sticky liquid from them.  
  
“I…” John trailed off, chewing on his chocolate bar slowly. “Everything!”  
  
“Yes but what… in particular? What is keeping you?” Talia asked calmly, licking a trailing string of condensed milk from the edge of her package.  
  
John frowned, and bit into his chocolate bar angrily, chewing it up with harsh motions. “My… apartment? All of my… stuff?” he offered weakly, scratching one of his ears with his free paw.  
  
“Ah yes, that seems like… quite the big thing to give up,” Talia lied.  
  
John harrumped, staring down at his feet and drawing his new knees up to his chest. “My job… my… hobbies?” he offered helplessly. “My _humanity_.”  
  
“That last one… that seems to be the one you are most caught on,” Talia observed.  
  
John gave a weak laugh at that, and nodded. “Yeah… just run away into the woods and live with a pokemon forever.”  
  
“What would you do if you were a successful human?” Talia asked carefully.  
  
John tilted his head, giving a confused hum. “I would… buy a house somewhere quiet. Get a pokemon, like an arcanine or a ninetales, and… whittle wood?”  
  
“You could shape wood now,” Talia pointed out.  
  
“Yes, I could, but I couldn’t… Get a job,” John explained, sounding like he was baffled with his own line of logic.  
  
“Ah yes, a job. To hurry and rush about for all of your life so you can eventually relax and whittle wood with a pokemon. Or you could relax and whittle wood now, with a pokemon. This pokemon,” Talia said with a toothy smile, petting herself on the chest.  
  
John frowned, staring at her for a long moment, and then nodded in concession. “Yes, absolutely, I guess… But as a human I don’t have to worry about someone coming up on me with a pokeball and owning me.”  
  
Talia nodded, her turn to concede. “Yes, that is a problem. But… is it worse than ‘work’ all day, every day? As a pokemon, you can eat the berries from the trees. And as a zoroark, you are quite immune to those silly shortsighted trainers.”  
  
“But I’m supposed to give up all of that to just… be a zoroark?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia arched an eyebrow at him, a tiny smile playing across her lips. “Perhaps. Or you could turn it around. Would you give up all of _this_ ,” she asked, motioning towards herself and giving a _very_ obvious gesture towards her lower body. “Just to go back to being a human?”  
  
John pursed his lips, finishing off his chocolate bar and then stuffing the wrapper back in the packaging. He rummaged around inside his package, finding his packet of condensed milk and then holding it up for Talia.  
  
Talia’s eyes narrowed, and she rolled over onto her paws and knees, prowling closer to him. She pressed past his offered packet of condensed milk, and instead straddled his lap, seating herself neatly right there atop him, flicking her heavy mane out of the way while he shifted his paws to try and keep from dropping the packet.  
  
“Feed me,” Talia said, bumping her nose against his own and staring at him with a little grin.  
  
John ripped the corner of the packet of condensed milk open, and then brought it up in front of her, pressing it lightly against her lips. Talia stared at him, holding eye contact as she suckled a tongueful of the liquid from the packet, before she nuzzled past his paw and caught him in a kiss. John could only open his mouth for her questing tongue, and she grinned as she pressed her tongue into his muzzle, sharing some of the condensed milk with it.  
  
Purring softly, John suckled at the tip of her agile tongue, cleaning some of the condensed milk from it before she withdrew her tongue and licked her lips, watching him intently all the while.  
  
“Why do I feel like you’re trying to seduce me?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia giggled, and licked his nose, her tongue smelling of the sugary condensed milk. “I am not.” She gazed at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing mischievously. “Would you like me to?”  
  
“Arceus yes,” John admitted, holding the packet of condensed milk above her muzzle. Talia tilted her head up, and opened her mouth, letting a drizzle of the smooth white liquid splash over her tongue, trailing in a sticky tendril from one side of her mouth.  
  
“You got me messy, you must clean me up,” Talia stated, licking her lips.  
  
John chuckled, and dropped the mostly-empty packet aside, wrapping his arms around Talia’s hips, his large paws rubbing talons softly down across her rump and lower back as he leaned up and swirled his tongue carefully against her muzzle, chasing the sticky strings of sugary goo that were there.  
  
A low purr rolled from Talia’s throat, and she leaned against him, resting her chin on top of his muzzle for a moment, even as she shifted her relatively heavy hips and rested herself very deliberately atop his sheath.  
  
John’s paws wrapped around her hips a little tighter, and he licked firmly through the fur of her muzzle, all the way across the bridge of her nose and then down the other side, snuffling at her, even as she tensed up and giggled, clenching her eyes closed.  
  
“Would you stay with me if I… went back to being a human?” John asked quietly, carefully rubbing his ‘thumbs’ around where the base of a tail would be if Talia had one.  
  
Talia stared at him, licking her lips, cleaning some of the mess from them, before tilting her head. “If you caught me.”  
  
“That is… a non-answer,” John protested, grumbling.  
  
“It is an exact answer,” Talia rebuked, poking his nose with a talon. “If you captured me, I would stay with you.”  
  
“Would you _let_ me capture you?” John queried pointedly.  
  
Talia paused, and then smiled at him. “No, no I would not.”  
  
“So you wouldn’t stay with me if I went back to being a human,” John deduced.  
  
“No,” Talia admitted, laying her arms over his shoulders and bumping her muzzle against his own. “I feel a connection with you. The zoroark you. I do not feel a connection for the human you.”  
  
“So… I have to pick between having you or going back to being human?”  
  
Talia pondered and then nodded carefully. “I think that is a fair understanding of my words.” She stared into his eyes, resting her nose against his own and laying her warm, weighty hips snugly against his own.  
  
“And you think I’ve already decided?” John asked plaintively.  
  
Talia nodded simply, and licked his nose with a faint smile. “You think you could resist me?” she asked, giving a tiny rock of her hips, letting him _feel_ the incredible softness of zoroark cunny right against his sheath.  
  
John huffed, and wrapped his arms around Talia’s middle, causing her to arch her back, grinding the soft flesh of her pussy against the opening of his sheath in a very deliberate motion that made him stiffen under her in more ways than one. “I can’t even pretend to have a response for this argument,” he admitted with a soft chuckle.  
  
Smirking, Talia pressed more of her weight down against him, until she felt the stirring length of his cock, still trapped in his sheath, grinding and catching against her. “Would you have mated with me, as a human?”  
  
John perked his ears up at her question, and licked his lips anxiously. “Fucked.”  
  
Talia tilted her head in confusion, halting the grinding of her hips against him. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Fucked.” John repeated, squeezing her hips, his cheeks warming slightly. “Just say ‘fucked’ instead of ‘mated’. It’s… sexier.”  
  
“You wish to hear me say it?” Talia asked, smirking down at him.  
  
John nodded guardedly, his paws squeezing against her hips, urging her to keep grinding against him, though she didn’t take the hint.  
  
Smiling mischievously, Talia waited until John was looking at her, and then leaned in until their noses were touching, staring into his eyes, deliberately dropping her voice to a low, husky murmur. “Would you have… _fucked_ me as a human?”  
  
John swallowed thickly, and Talia giggled as she felt his sheath bulge up between her thighs, his growing tip pressing against the soft flesh of her cunny. “Arceus, if you were grinding in my lap like this, _yes_.”  
  
“But you wouldn’t have had a _knot_ as a human, yes?” Talia asked, her question seeming half query and half-statement.  
  
“Humans don’t have knots, no,” John admitted, rubbing his claws carefully around Talia’s lower back, following the lines of muscles hidden beneath her fur. Even just talking about it, he couldn’t help but think back to how Talia felt around his knot; how incredibly _good_ that had felt.  
  
Talia smirked at him, seeming to notice his train of thought, and the more physical evidence of the rapidly-growing zoroark cock pressing up between her thighs! She adjusted the angle of her hips, rolling them back slowly, so that the purple length spilling out of his sheath instead throbbed up against the length of her soft cunt, and she could grind against him and trap his length between their bodies as it grew.  
  
“Why do you-mnf-ask?” John queried, pausing as Talia’s hips pushed his cock tight against his own belly in a slow grind. He couldn’t help but look down between their bodies, watching the soft outer lips of her dark-furred pussy spreading against the underside of his new cock.  
  
“You seem very eager for this as a zoroark,” Talia mused, grinning at the way he twitched and stiffened as she slowly ground her hips down the length of his stiffening cock. “I have to wonder if it is new, or something you always wanted?”  
  
“This is definitely new,” John admitted, glancing up at her face, and then being drawn back down to the view of her powerful hips slowly rocking in his lap, and the trapped purple of his cock so very close to that soft zoroark honeypot. “I wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing this as a human.”  
  
John was momentarily silenced as Talia ground her hips down, catching against his forming knot, her soft outer lips smooshing up against the underside of it, making him hiss softly and bare his teeth. A dribble of his precum splashed down over his belly, and Talia giggled, reaching a paw down to rub a talon around his tip, and then bring the red claw to her mouth, holding his gaze as she tasted it. His cock _throbbed_ stiffly as he watched her, and with another giggle, Talia adjusted her hips, lifting them until she could align his stiff length with her soft cunt, leaning back just far enough that his tip caught against her.  
  
The breath caught in John’s throat as he felt soft outer lips spread for him, immediately followed by the soft caress of inner flesh against his very tip, wet, hot, and inviting!  
  
“Do you think you could go back to chasing silly human girls after this?” Talia asked, staring down at him as she carefully angled herself, letting the weight of her hips slowly drop, putting more and more pressure against his tip until her soft, pliable outer lips stretched around the rim of his tip, swallowing up the first stiff inch of him.  
  
John groaned helplessly, wrapping his paws around Talia’s hips, trying to press her down, but the female snorted and then pressed _him_ down, both of her powerful paws pushing him back against the rock until he was completely flat. She leaned forwards, causing soft flesh to shift around that first inch buried inside her, until she could rest her knees on either side of his middle, her strong forepaws resting on his chest. She grinned down at him, making sure he wasn’t going to attempt to move, before she slowly pressed down again, _consuming_ him with that soft, tight zoroark cunny, inch after inch of his purple flesh disappearing inside her.  
  
A shudder passed down John’s form, and his hips bucked on instinct, stirring that stiff cock inside Talia’s clenching depths, but she ignored him, pausing as she reached the halfway point, and then reversing direction. Her large hips lifted up, and John had a perfect view between them of his purple cock reappearing, sliding out of that spread zoroark pussy, slick with her juices, a clear ring of moisture showing exactly how far down she’s gotten.  
  
And then, with a wicked grin, Talia arched her hips, and then slid back down... And down, and down! Inch after inch of stiff purple flesh disappeared inside her, grinding against soft, slick inner flesh, burrowing past her resistance while the weight of her hips did all the work. Each new inch made John tense and growl louder, his teeth baring and the talons on his feet digging into the boulder, hips arching against her futilely.  
  
  
  
Talia just held him down, grinning, and then jerked her hips upwards, sliding a couple stiff inches of his cock out of her, before she reversed direction again and deliberately pressed down until she felt the top of his fat, eager knot press right up against the outer lips of her drooling cunt!  
  
John shuddered, half sitting up, trying to grasp her hips and grind against her, but Talia just smirked and pressed his shoulders down with her paws again, leaning over him, letting her weight hold him in place. She slowly rocked her hips against him, letting him feel the soft outer lips rubbing and pressing against the top of his knot, before she drew up a stiff inch of him, and then sank back down until her progress was stymied by his knot once more!  
  
“Right where you belong,” Talia purred, leaning over him, pressing in to deliver an affectionate lick against his nose. She grinned at him, before leaning back once more, straightening up so that she was sitting astride his middle, giving him a perfect view of her body as she started to _bounce_.  
  
John groaned almost incoherently as Talia started to move, his paws weakly grasping at her hips and thighs. He sat up just enough to watch her, muzzle parted and tongue hanging partway out, his ears flattening back fully as he drank in the sight of her bouncing on his cock. She was sitting so perfectly in his ‘lap’, holding his stiff cock vertical with the sweet grasp of her inner flesh, so that all she had to do was use her powerful leg muscles to lift her hips a few inches and then drop back down until she ground against the top of his straining knot. Already, hot dribbles of precum were starting to spill inside her, even as her own slick liquids drooled down around the top of his knot, threatening to lubricate it enough to sink past her resistance!  
  
“Fuck…” John groaned, lifting his new heavy paws and resting them on Talia’s sleek hips, his toe-claws digging into the boulder’s surface. He noticed a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he snapped his head to the left, staring as a breloom ambled towards the river.  
  
“Ignore them,” Talia suggested, smirking, a red claw lightly tugging at his chin, urging him to face her again. As John turned back to face her, he became aware of a projection surrounding them. He was in the midst of wondering whether Talia had just projected it or if she’d always been doing so, when she lifted her hips up a few inches and then allowed gravity to drag her back down onto his cock.  
  
  
  
“Oh f-fuck…” John groaned as Talia rolled her hips, angling them forwards, causing her delightfully-soft outer lips to grind against the top of his knot while inner flesh shifted around him in a tight, slippery grasp. Smirking down at him, she straightened up, and then gave a trio of heavy bounces right in his lap, slipping up a few glorious inches only to let her full weight fall atop him, _burying_ him in her so deep that his knot threatened to sink inside.  
  
“C-careful!” John hissed in caution, acutely aware of how easy it would be for his knot to sink past her resistance like this. There was already so much weight against him that he could feel it _straining_ against her outer lips, grinding in a slippery press with every shift of her weight.  
  
Talia stared down at him hungrily, licking her lips, her red eyes wild and wicked as she shifted her grasp to his paws and then lifted them, pinning his wrists above his head and _staring_ down at him hungrily. With the most wicked of grins, she deliberately rolled her hips, grinding and pressing, raising the pressure further and further until with a slippery shift, his fat knot sank inside her!  
  
“O-Oh _fuck_!” John almost snarled, hips straining up against her, pushing their bodies flush. But Talia lifted her hips slightly and then _slammed_ them down against his own, pinning his hips to the boulder with her full weight the same way she was pinning his wrists, nose-to-nose with him now, with his stiff, throbbing, _straining_ cock pulsing and drooling precum balls-deep inside her!  
  
“Be careful now, John,” Talia purred, giving a tiny roll of her hips, causing inner flesh to shift around him, squeezing and tugging at him, stimulating his new knot in such a delightful way that his cock stiffened and _throbbed_ , and he felt his already-thick knot bloat out a tiny bit more. “Get too excited and I won’t be able to free you from my depths…”  
  
“B-bu… nnnng… it’s already inside!” John hissed, struggling slightly.  
  
“Yes, but if you do not thicken too much, I can still pull you out before you finish,” Talia said, almost conversationally, even as she rolled her hips exactly the same as she had less than a minute previously. But this time, with his half-bulged knot buried inside her, her depths _clenched_ and squeezed around, tugging at his knot, and just causing him to stiffen wildly inside her, so utterly rock-hard that he could acutely feel each of his heartbeats as a urgent _throb_ deep inside her, his rigid cock straining against her slippery inner walls.  
  
“O-oh fuck I’m gonna b-breed you,” John murmured, almost incoherently, as Talia wiggled her hips and settled back down atop him, just resting there, holding him immobile beneath her.  
  
“Perhaps,” Talia pondered, and then carefully, gently arched her hips, deliberately grinding against his knot. She giggled darkly at the way he throbbed and thickened inside her, twitching so urgently inside her that she could feel his tip shifting with each urgent throb of his cock. “But I can feel your knot. I can remove you before you thicken too far,” she mused, turning her hips slightly to the side.  
  
John almost _howled_ with the sensation around his entire knot, and his head swam for a moment as an urgent spurt of precum filled her with such eager volume that he felt it start to drool down his underside.  
  
“It is fun though, yes?” Talia purred, leaning forwards slowly, her wicked giggle growing in volume as John snarled and clenched his paws on air, fighting against her grasp as her shifting caused more pressure against his knot. She pressed her pointed nose to his own, staring into his eyes innocently, “I would orgasm _so hard_ if you bred me right now.”  
  
John’s ears flattened back, and he gave a quiver, feeling the fur all down the length of his spine stand on end against the boulder he was laying upon, his eyes widening as her words inevitably made him think of _breeding_ her.  
  
Arceus, why did that turn him on so much?!  
  
John’s cock stiffened and pulsed inside her, throbbing with insistent urgency, and his claws grasped futilely at empty air once again as Talia carefully held her hips against him, not letting him move an inch.  
  
“Mrf… you thickened up so much that time,” Talia purred against his muzzle. “You become so aroused at the thought of breeding me…”  
  
“O-oh fuck s-shut up!” John hissed in warning between clenched teeth, scrunching his eyes closed as his cock _strained_ against her insides, his knot widening even further!  
  
“You are so deep,” Talia purred, brushing her muzzle past his own so she could whisper heated words directly into his ear. She ground her hips down against him, stimulating him just the tiniest amount as she whispered pure _filth_ in his ear. “With your knot this _deep_ …” she whisper-moaned in his ear, punctuating the word with a subtle grind of her hips that John felt through every last atom of his cock. “You would _fill_ me… No mistakes. You would _breed_ me so thoroughly, John. All those lovely… _hot_ … _spurts_ … so _deep_ inside me... “ each word was carefully emphazed by a tiny grind of her hips, and John’s whining snarl rose in pitch with each one!  
  
With a wicked giggle, Talia started to lift up again, and John strained against her grasp, feet digging talons into the boulder as he strained to break free of her grasp.  
  
Talia had to release his wrists as she encountered resistance, slipping one of her paws down to spread herself, trying to loosen the pressure on John’s bulging knot, even as she snapped a brusque ‘Be still!’ at him, no longer giggling and teasing but focused and intent, carefully trying to extricate his knot at the last moment before it swelled too large to withdraw.  
  
John’s paws shot down around her hips, and he sat up enough to wrap his arms around her entirely, squeezing her hips and tugging her back down. Talia had one of her feet under her now, and was trying to lift her hips up, but John’s powerful grasp tugged her back down. She gave him a blank stare, teeth baring, ears flattening back. “John!” she cautioned, sounding worried for the first time. “You must not fight me!”  
  
Instead of obeying her, John dragged her hips down, right to the bottom of his knot again, until her hips were flush with his crotch, and then one of his paws pushed against her chest, forcing her into that upright position once more. The shifting, straining grasp of her clenching inner flesh tugged at him as she moved, making him fatten even further, and Talia gave a tiny, worried whine.  
  
“John. You are going to-”  
  
“- _Breed_ you!” John finished for her, sliding his paw down her front, tracing it over her sleek stomach. With her in his lap like that, he had full access to her belly, and one of his claws lightly traced the shape he imagined his cock took inside her, throbbing and pulsing in eager warning.  
  
“Does that mean you have-” Talia started, only to be cut off by an almost _feral_ snarl from John!  
  
“Bounce your _fucking hips_!” John snarled, grasping her hips with both paws and tugging at her in urgent motions.  
  
Talia stared down at him intently, red eyes gleaming, and she leaned forwards slightly, her heavy paws resting on his chest. It was obvious she was stronger than him, and he couldn’t physically coerce her. But with a smile that soon turned lewd, Talia lifted her hips a half-inch and started to bounce on him again.  
  
Immediately, John’s knot responded, thickening and bulging inside her, slowly spreading her even further with each urgent _throb_ in it, while fitful, repeated spurts of precum splashed deep inside her.  
  
  
  
Talia didn’t slow and stop this time however, and without the resting period, John’s knot thickened rapidly, quickly bulging up until it was straining her inner flesh, stretching her to utter capacity while his tip remained pointed threateningly point-blank, right at the deepest part of her slippery cunt.  
  
“O-oh fuck, yes! Just a little bit more!” John hissed, his paws grasping at her hips tighter, talons digging into her fur. Talia smirked down at him, and started to _jerk_ her hips as she came down on him, her tight depths clenching and squeezing at him, each tug of her hips translating to a harsh squeeze and grasp around his achingly-fattened knot.  
  
Talia’s talons grasped at his shoulder as she reached her other paw in, starting to rub her talons against her clit in urgent little rubs, even as her depths started to clench around him in trembling, reflexive motions. “C-cum in me, John! Breed me!” she hissed, leaning further over him and deliberately rolling her hips, each clenching grasp of her inner flesh coaxing around him making him tense and stiffen inside her. “F-fuck me full of your kits!”  
  
John grasped around Talia’s hips tightly, and held her down against him, keeping her flush with him, balls-deep inside her, his heavy knot plugging her entirely, stretching her to her absolute limit while he throbbed and jerked inside her.  
  
Talia leaned back once more, essentially sitting in his lap as she started to orgasm, rubbing furiously at her clit and lifted her other paw to her muzzle, covering her mouth as she let a trembling moan, her inner flesh cinching down around him and started to squeeze in rhythm motions as she reached orgasm.  
  
John’s eyes widened, and he _snarled_ ferally, paws grasping at Talia’s hips, trying to tug her down a single millimetre further over his cock even as he _exploded_ inside her. Each tremulous flutter of her slippery flesh around him made him pulse and spurt violently, sending powerful volleys of hot zoroark spunk splattering against the top of her thoroughly-stuffed cunt. He filled her so utterly, so quickly that he felt it drooling down around his cock, pooling at the top of his knot as he jerked against her, flooding her depths with his gooey, potent spunk.  
  
Groaning helplessly, Talia leaned over him, panting hard, her paws on either side of his head, ears flattened back and muzzle parted, eyes clenched closed, the very picture of pleasure as John bred her, pumping sticky, thick rushes of spunk directly against her deepest barrier. She rocked her hips against him in earnest, her depths clenching around him in orgasmic delight, each eager spurt of his spunk answered by a clench around him that _squeezed_ his knot and just redoubled his output! Even with the fat knot plugging her, John’s spunk started to drool from around the seal, pouring out of her well-stuffed entrance every time her hips shifted.  
  
John threw his arms up around her, and she stiffened slightly, only for John to surprise her with a very human kiss, pushing his muzzle up against her own awkwardly. She stared at him in hazy confusion for a moment, before blinking and shuddering, flattening down atop him to tilt her muzzle to the side to help facilitate the kiss.  
  
Talia’s full weight collapsed down upon him, and John grunted, his paws sliding down to a spot just above her rump, where her muscles curved pleasantly, and helped hold her as deep atop him as he could manage, panting into the kiss as he felt her rhythmic, orgasmic clenches _milking_ his spurting cock.  
  
“F-fuck…” John gasped once the kiss was finally disengaged. His entire crotch was a mess, and he could feel sluggish ribbons of his own gooey spunk drooling out from around the knot stuffed inside Talia’s squeezing cunt.  
  
Talia was flat against his front by that point, her chin resting against his throat, staring at him with hazy red eyes, making pleased rumbling noises. “It would seem you have made your choice.”  
  
John groaned fitfully, and lifted a weak, shaky paw to try and drop across her muzzle. “No talk now, please,” he groaned, wrapping his free arm around her and trying to roll them both carefully onto their sides.  
  
With a huff, Talia followed the press of his arm, flicking her mane to form a soft surface for her to lay upon before flumping out on her back. John naturally came to rest between her thighs, kneeling there, paws on either side of her body for support. She _squeezed_ around him and he gasped, and then shuffled closer to her, adjusting his stance to bury that tiny millimetre deeper inside her on reflex.  
  
“You have bred me,” Talia stated, sliding a paw over her sleek stomach.  
  
John’s ears flattened back, and his gaze lowered, watching her paw rubbing over her flat stomach and then down between her thighs, giving a rub at her own clit that made her inner flesh _clench_ around him. She giggled wickedly at the way it made him arch and hiss, and he grumbled faintly, pushing his muzzle against her cheek.  
  
He _had_ bred her. There was almost no doubt about that now. And a small part of his mind; probably the human part of his mind, was yelling at him about how _wrong_ this was.  
  
But it felt so _right_.  
  
John laid his head down on Talia’s chest, tucking his elbows in closer to squeeze her middle, resting there as best he could and just enjoying the feel of her clenching around his drooling cock. It was a good few minutes before he felt the light grooming licks of Talia’s tongue against his ear.  
  
“So, what are we to do?” Talia asked, peering at him with a slightly coy smile.  
  
John struggled to lift his head, giving her a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Well now that you have made your decision…” Talia trailed off, staring into his eyes, judging his reaction.  
  
“Mhmm?” John asked blankly.  
  
“Where are we to go?” Talia pressed. “I know the immediate area… but you are more knowledgeable about places further away. Would you know of anything to raise pups?”  
  
John _stared_ at Talia for a long moment, and then his eyes flicked downwards, to her belly, where his cock was still lazily drooling spunk deep inside her, and then looked back up at her, his cheeks reddening. “Oh... uh… well… actually. Maybe?”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Hello?” Rian called to the empty laboratory, glancing into each corner, and then squinting at each machine, as though he expected it to jump to life.  
  
There was a noise from outside; the opening of his truck door.  
  
“My boy?” Rian asked.  
  
There was a zoroark half-in, half-out of the moving truck, giant flowing mane of purple-tipped hair visible spilling out of the door. John fiddled with the glove compartment, managing to finally work the clasp with his new claws, and then popped it open, reaching in and finding a folded map. He extricated it, and then wiggled out of the door, coming up with the map.  
  
“My boy?” Rian repeated, ambling over to the zoroark. Another zoroark was leaning against the hood of his truck, resting one paw flat against it, enjoying the heat of the engine block radiating through the hood.  
  
John ambled over to the scientist, and carefully unfolded the map. He managed to tear the corner of it, and grumbled to himself, before carefully examining it, and then pointing with a talon to one of the names on it, holding it up in front of the scientist’s face.  
  
“Yes?” Rian asked blankly.  
  
“Zor!” John emphasised, pointing again.  
  
“You want… to go there?” Rian asked blankly.  
  
John nodded once.  
  
Rian made a motion towards the door of the laboratory. “Well, after you’re back to normal-”  
  
John lifted a paw for silence.  
  
Rian stared at him, and then noticed that John was holding something in his paw. Something trailing wires. “What is…?”  
  
John held out his paw, looking slightly smug.  
  
“This is…” Rian stared at the object, taking it gingerly from the zoroark. “That control cluster! It will take _weeks_ to rewire this!”  
  
John nodded carefully, and Rain _stared_ at him, and then glanced past him at the other zoroark, perplexed.  
  
“My boy, you can’t be seriously-”  
  
John lifted a paw again and shook his head. “Zor.”  
  
“But you’re a-”  
  
“ _Zor_!”  
  
Rian continued to stare at him, running a hand through his thinning hair in abject confusion. “This is some kind of transformation-induced derangement. You are not yourself my boy!”  
  
John’s eyes narrowed, and he reached both paws forwards, grasping the scientist’s bony shoulders with an iron grip. “Zor. O. Ark.”  
  
“Arceus! Calm down!” Rian protested weakly, his arms pinned to his side by the zoroark’s grasp. “Fine. Fine! We’ll go there! Get in the truck!”  
  
John stared at the scientist, watching him intently, seemingly scanning him for duplicity, before he relented, releasing him, letting him stagger backwards. He ambled towards the back of the truck, and after a moment, the second zoroark did as well.  
  
Rian pursed his lips, and then sighed, moving over to the open door of the truck and gingerly placing the control cluster on the passenger seat, before moving around to the driver’s side, while the two zoroarks climbed into the back.  
  


* * *

  
  
“I’ll fix it. A week, two tops! Come find me when you change your mind,” Rian said, half-leaning out of the truck window, staring down at John. Talia had already moved off to the side of the road, and was inspecting the big slate-grey wall that the road ran alongside.  
  
“See you never!” John said cheerfully, waving to the scientist and then stepping away. It took him a moment to remember how to summon an illusion, but he formed one, and watched Rian’s expression turn concerned, and then dismissive. Rian gave a ‘bah!’ out the window, making a vague gesture of frustration before starting the truck up again and rolling the truck down the road, around the corner and past the gate house.  
  
“You are… certain about this?” Talia asked uncomfortably. “Dragon Fang Forest does not have good reputation amongst pokemon.”  
  
“It’s a pokemon sanctuary. They won’t even know we’re there,” John reasoned, motioning towards the wall. He crept along it, towards the corner of the road that would bring them into view of the gate house, with Talia prowling along behind him, her face a picture of worry. “I’ll let you illusion us through the gate. I… I’m not certain I can make a convincing illusion to get us through entirely.  
  
“Very well,” Talia responded.  
  


* * *

  
  
The gate guards; a human female and her female houndoom, were lazing in the gate house of the Francis Lockier Institute For Furtherment of Wild Pokemon Research. Their job consisted of a lot of waiting around, and very little activity. The second pair of guards, a male and female growlithe, were out walking the wall, doing their rounds.  
  
The gate house doubled as a control centre, holding an array of monitoring devices, from cameras to spectral wave sensors designed to pick up the traces of ghost pokemon. A big monitor even showed a list of pokemon at the institute, monitored in real time. Occasionally, bird pokemon would blip on or off, but for the most part, it was static. Pokemon occasionally wandered in from outside, but for the most part their vigil was a quiet one.  
  
John and Talia didn’t even rustle the grass as they crept in. Even Lucy, the houndoom, didn’t look up at their passage. No scent, no sounds, no sight. The zoroark pair managed to slip past the gatehouse as quietly as a ghost pokemon.  
  
The computer beeped quietly, and the gate guard checked the monitors, scanning the cameras for movement around the wall. The spectrograph spiked, and she leaned closer, staring at it, and then chuckled.  
  
Lucy lifted her head for a moment, making a querying noise, but the guard didn’t respond. She just typed something into the computer:  
  
**ZOROARK +2**  
  


* * *

  
  
The F.L.I.F.F turned out to be larger than John or Talia suspected. An entire valley between two mountain peaks had been cordoned off and converted to a pokemon research grounds. Pokemon of all types gamboled and played there, free of the threat of trainers coming to try and tame them.  
  
John was leaning back against a tree stump, cushioned by his huge mane. He remembered the tree; when he first arrived in the sanctuary, he had noted to himself that it looked like it would fall soon. It lasted a year longer than John thought it would; and now the big oak was lain on its side, used as a bridge for John’s pups to run back and forth along. Already, the top face of the big tree was stripped of bark from sharp zorua claws.  
  
John was keeping a watchful eye on them; two perfect little zorua pups, a male and female. One shiny, one not, just like he and Talia.  
  
A heavy shape entered John’s vision and he ‘oof’ed as Talia sat down directly in his lap, straddling him and smirking down at him, holding up a branch of berries for him to observe and offering him a spicy red one.  
  
John took the offered berry, and mulled over the taste of it. “This is new. Definitely not from the sanctuary. You know if you keep stealing the berries from the gate guards, they’re going to notice, right?”  
  
“They have begun placing two baskets of berries out, so that I may steal one and they may keep the other,” Talia said proudly.  
  
John rolled his eyes, and wrapped his paws around her, leaning up to nibble on her throat, even as he glanced past her to make sure the zorua weren’t getting into _too_ much mischief.  
  
“I believe it is our… anniversary,” Talia stated, mulling over the word. It was a concept John had had to teach her, along with the calendar and how that particular piece of time-keeping worked.  
  
“Oh?” John queried.  
  
“Yes,” Talia said, nuzzling past his muzzle to whisper in his ear quietly, so that the kids didn’t hear. “Of when you gave me your know on the river.”  
  
“That is… not uh…” John cleared his throat with a self-conscious cough and a chuckle. “Not really the kind of thing you should have an anniversary for.”  
  
Taila cocked her head to the side. “It is.”  
  
“Okay, why?” John asked plaintively. “I’m sure you have a good reason I’m just… not seeing it.”  
  
“It is the moment you decided to stay a zoroark, and chose _me_ instead of the human,” Talia said smugly.  
  
John pursed his lips but then nodded in acquiescence. “That’s a very good answer. And you had some very compelling arguments.”  
  
Talia smirked, and rested her nose against his own, staring into his eyes. “Have you any regrets?”  
  
John wrapped his paws around her middle, and then gave her a little kiss, before shaking his head. “While I’m with you? Never.”


End file.
